Commuting elements and spaces of homomorphisms
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Commuting elements and spaces of homomorphisms
zbMATH Open document ID: 1131.57003
published in: Mathematische Annalen
publication date: 2007-07-19T00:00:00Z
full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0603197
review text: Let \(\pi\) denote a finitely generated discrete group and \(G\) a finite dimensional Lie group. The paper makes substantial contributions to the understanding of the geometry and cohomology of the spaces \(Hom(\pi,G)\) of group homomorphisms of \(\pi\) into \(G\). If \(\pi\) is a free abelian group of rank equal to \(n\), then \(Hom(\pi,G)\) is the space of ordered \(n\)-tuples of commuting elements in \(G\). In a main theorem (for the orthogonal groups), a decomposition is given of \(Hom(\pi,O(n))\) into non-empty, path-connected, disjoint closed subsets enumerated by the first Stiefel-Whitney class of the homomorphisms, and a lower bound is given for the number of components in the space. For \(G=SU(2)\), a complete calculation of the cohomology of these spaces is given for \(n=2,3\). There are numerous other interesting results in the paper.
reviewed by: Vagn Lundsgaard Hansen
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 57M07
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 22E99
zbMATH DE Number: 5172536
zbMATH Keywords: cohomology of spaces of homomorphisms
author: Alejandro Adem
author: F. R. Cohen
MaRDI profile type: MaRDI publication profile
OpenAlex ID: W2949153603
arXiv ID: math/0603197
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DOI: 10.1007/S00208-007-0089-Z
description: scientific article