Bredon homology and ramified covering G-maps

Let G be a finite group. The objective of this paper is twofold. First we prove that the cellular Bredon homology groups with coefficients in an arbitrary coefficient system M are isomorphic to the homotopy groups of certain topological abelian group. And second, we study ramified covering G-maps of simplicial sets and of simplicial complexes. As an application, we construct a transfer for them in Bredon homology, when M is a Mackey functor. We also show that the Bredon-Illman homology with coefficients in M satisfies the equivariant weak homotopy equivalence axiom in the category of G-spaces.     

On the equivariant cohomology of rotation groups and Stiefel manifolds

In this paper, we compute the RO(Z/2)-graded equivariant cohomology of rotation groups and Stiefel manifolds with particular involutions.     

Equivariant evaluation on free loop spaces

There is a natural evaluation map on the free loop space which sends a loop to its values at the kth roots of unity. This map is equivariant with respect to the action of the cyclic group on k elements . We study the induced map in -equivariant cohomology with mod two coefficients in the cases where for . Received: 17 February 2000; in final form: 28 February 2001 / Published online: 18 January 2002     

Abelianization for hyperkähler quotients

We study an integration theory in circle equivariant cohomology in order to prove a theorem relating the cohomology ring of a hyperkähler quotient to the cohomology ring of the quotient by a maximal abelian subgroup, analogous to a theorem of Martin for symplectic quotients. We discuss applications of this theorem to quiver varieties, and compute as an example the ordinary and equivariant cohomology rings of a hyperpolygon space.     

On the localization formula in equivariant cohomology

We give a generalization of the Atiyah-Bott-Berline-Vergne localization theorem for the equivariant cohomology of a torus action. We replace the manifold having a torus action by an equivariant map of manifolds having a compact connected Lie group action. This provides a systematic method for calculating the Gysin homomorphism in ordinary cohomology of an equivariant map. As an example, we recover a formula of Akyildiz-Carrell for the Gysin homomorphism of flag manifolds.     

Generalized Dirichlet to Neumann operator on invariant differential forms and equivariant cohomology

In recent work, Belishev and Sharafutdinov show that the generalized Dirichlet to Neumann (DN) operator Λ on a compact Riemannian manifold M with boundary ∂M determines de Rham cohomology groups of M. In this paper, we suppose G is a torus acting by isometries on M. Given X in the Lie algebra of G and the corresponding vector field XM on M, Witten defines an inhomogeneous coboundary operator dXM=d+ιXM on invariant forms on M. The main purpose is to adapt Belishev-Sharafutdinov?s boundary data to invariant forms in terms of the operator dXM in order to investigate to what extent the equivariant topology of a manifold is determined by the corresponding variant of the DN map. We define an operator ΛXM on invariant forms on the boundary which we call the XM-DN map and using this we recover the XM-cohomology groups from the generalized boundary data (∂M,ΛXM). This shows that for a Zariski-open subset of the Lie algebra, ΛXM determines the free part of the relative and absolute equivariant cohomology groups of M. In addition, we partially determine the ring structure of XM-cohomology groups from ΛXM. These results explain to what extent the equivariant topology of the manifold in question is determined by ΛXM.     

The dualizing spectrum of a topological group

To a topological group G, we assign a naive G-spectrum , called the dualizing spectrum of G. When the classifying space BG is finitely dominated, we show that detects Poincaré duality in the sense that BG is a Poincaré duality space if and only if is a homotopy finite spectrum. Secondly, we show that the dualizing spectrum behaves multiplicatively on certain topological group extensions. In proving these results we introduce a new tool: a norm map which is defined for any G and for any naive G-spectrum E. Applications of the dualizing spectrum come in two flavors: (i) applications in the theory of Poincaré duality spaces, and (ii) applications in the theory of group cohomology. On the Poincaré duality space side, we derive a homotopy theoretic solution to a problem posed by Wall which says that in a fibration sequence of fini the total space satisfies Poincaré duality if and only if the base and fiber do. The dualizing spectrum can also be used to give an entirely homotopy theoretic construction of the Spivak fibration of a finitely dominated Poincaré duality space. We also include a new proof of Browder's theorem that every finite H-space satisfies Poincaré duality. In connection with group cohomology, we show how to define a variant of Farrell-Tate cohomology for any topological or discrete group G, with coefficients in any naive equivariant cohomology theory E. When E is connective, and when G admits a subgroup H of finite index such that BH is finitely dominated, we show that this cohomology coincides with the ordinary cohomology of G with coefficients in E in degrees greater than the cohomological dimension of H. In an appendix, we identify the homotopy type of for certain kinds of groups. The class includes all compact Lie groups, torsion free arithmetic groups and Bieri-Eckmann duality groups. Received July 14, 1999 / Revised May 17, 2000 / Published online February 5, 2001     

Chern character for totally disconnected groups

In this paper we construct a bivariant Chern character for the equivariant KK-theory of a totally disconnected group with values in bivariant equivariant cohomology in the sense of Baum and Schneider. We prove in particular that the complexified left hand side of the Baum–Connes conjecture for a totally disconnected group is isomorphic to cosheaf homology. Moreover, it is shown that our transformation extends the Chern character defined by Baum and Schneider for profinite groups.     

Bredon-Illman cohomology with actions of totally disconnected groups

We study the Bredon-Illman cohomology with local coefficients for a G-space X in the case of G being a totally disconnected, locally compact group. We prove that any short exact sequence of equivariant local coefficients systems on X gives a long exact sequence of the associated Bredon-Illman cohomology groups with local coefficients.     

Algebraic models of change of groups functors in (co)free rational equivariant spectra

Free and cofree equivariant spectra are important classes of equivariant spectra which represent equivariant cohomology theories on free equivariant spaces. Greenlees-Shipley [24], [26] and Pol and the author [45] have given an algebraic model for rational (co)free equivariant spectra. In this paper, we extend this framework by proving that the Quillen functors of induction-restriction-coinduction between categories of (co)free rational equivariant spectra correspond to Quillen functors between the algebraic models in the case of connected compact Lie groups. This is achieved using new abstract techniques regarding correspondences of Quillen functors along Quillen equivalences, which we expect to be of use in other applications.     

New polytope decompositions and Euler-Maclaurin formulas for simple integral polytopes

We give new weighted decompositions for simple polytopes, generalizing previous results of Lawrence-Varchenko and Brianchon-Gram. We start with Witten's non-abelian localization principle in equivariant cohomology for the norm-square of the moment map in the context of toric varieties to obtain a decomposition for Delzant polytopes. Then, by a purely combinatorial argument, we show that this formula holds for any simple polytope. As an application, we study Euler-Maclaurin formulas.     

Homotopy classification of braided graded categorical groups

For any group G, a certain cohomology theory of G-modules is developed. This cohomology arises from the homotopy theory of G-spaces and it is called the “abelian cohomology of G-modules”. Then, as the main results of this paper, natural one-to-one correspondences between elements of the 3^rd cohomology groups of G-modules, G-equivariant pointed simply-connected homotopy 3-types and equivalence classes of braided G-graded categorical groups are established. The relationship among all these objects with equivariant quadratic functions between G-modules is also discussed.     

The degree of maps of free G-manifolds and the average

Suppose that G is a compact Lie group, M and N are orientable, free G-manifolds and f : M → N is an equivariant map. We show that the degree of f satisfies a formula involving data given by the classifying maps of the orbit spaces M/G and N/G. In particular, if the generator of the top dimensional cohomology of M/G with integer coefficients is in the image of the cohomology map induced by the classifying map for M, then the degree is one. The condition that the map be equivariant can be relaxed: it is enough to require that it be “nearly equivariant”, up to a positive constant. We will also discuss the G-average construction and show that the requirement that the map be equivariant can be replaced by a somewhat weaker condition involving the average of the map. These results are applied to maps into real, complex and quaternionic Stiefel manifolds. In particular, we show that a nearly equivariant map of a complex or quaternionic Stiefel manifold into itself has degree one. Dedicated to the memory of Jean Leray     

Spin^{\rm c} -manifolds with Pin(2)-action

We study -manifolds with Pin(2)-action. The main tool is a vanishing theorem for certain indices of twisted -Dirac operators. This theorem is used to show that the Witten genus vanishes on such manifolds provided the first Chern class and the first Pontrjagin class are torsion. We apply the vanishing theorem to cohomology complex projective spaces and give partial evidence for a conjecture of Petrie. For example we prove that the total Pontrjagin class of a cohomology with -action has standard form if the first Pontrjagin class has standard form. We also determine the intersection form of certain 4-manifolds with Pin(2)-action. Received: 26 June 1998     

Geometric versus homotopy theoretic equivariant bordism

By results of Löffler and Comezaña, the Pontrjagin-Thom map from geometric G-equivariant bordism to homotopy theoretic equivariant bordism is injective for compact abelian G. If G=S¹××S¹, we prove that the associated fixed point square is a pull back square, thus confirming a recent conjecture of Sinha [22]. This is used in order to determine the image of the Pontrjagin-Thom map for toralG.     

Equivariant fixed-point indices of iterated maps

We describe an equivariant version (for actions of a finite group G) of Dold’s index theory, [10], for iterated maps. Equivariant Dold indices are defined, in general, for a G-map U → X defined on an open G-subset of a G-ANR X (and satisfying a suitable compactness condition). A local index for isolated fixed-points is introduced, and the theorem of Shub and Sullivan on the vanishing of all but finitely many Dold indices for a continuously differentiable map is extended to the equivariant case. Homotopy Dold indices, arising from the equivariant Reidemeister trace, are also considered.      

Homotopy classification of graded Picard categories

Certain low-dimensional symmetric cohomology groups of G-modules, for any given group G, are computed as the cohomology of an explicit cochain complex. This result is used to establish natural one-to-one correspondences between elements of the 3rd symmetric cohomology groups of G-modules, G-equivariant pointed 2-connected homotopy 4-types, and equivalence classes of G-graded Picard categories. The simplicial nerve of a G-graded Picard category is also constructed and studied.     

Equivariant homotopical homology with coefficients in a Mackey functor

Let M be a Mackey functor for a finite group G. In this paper, generalizing the Dold-Thom construction, we construct an ordinary equivariant homotopical homology theory with coefficients in M, whose values on the category of finite G-sets realize the bifunctor M, both covariantly and contravariantly. Furthermore, we extend the contravariant functor to define a transfer in the theory for G-equivariant covering maps. This transfer is given by a continuous homomorphism between topological abelian groups.We prove a formula for the composite of the transfer and the projection of a G-equivariant covering map and characterize those Mackey functors M for which that formula has an expression analogous to the classical one.