A van Kampen theorem for equivariant fundamental groupoids

The equivariant fundamental groupoid of a G-space X is a category which generalizes the fundamental groupoid of a space to the equivariant setting. In this paper, we prove a van Kampen theorem for these categories: the equivariant fundamental groupoid of X can be obtained as a pushout of the categories associated to two open G-subsets covering X. This is proved by interpreting the equivariant fundamental groupoid as a Grothendieck semidirect product construction, and combining general properties of this construction with the ordinary (non-equivariant) van Kampen theorem. We then illustrate applications of this theorem by showing that the equivariant fundamental groupoid of a G-CW complex only depends on the 2-skeleton and also by using the theorem to compute an example.     

The degree of maps of free G-manifolds

Suppose that M and N are orientable, closed, connected manifolds with free actions of compact Lie groups G and H of the same dimension, and suppose that u : G → H is a homomorphism. We study the degree of maps f : M → N that are “equivariant up to u”. For abelian actions and for a power map such maps satisfy the condition f(λx) = λ ^r x. To Albrecht Dold and Edward Fadell     

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     

G-symmetric spectra,semistability and the multiplicative norm

In this paper we develop the basic homotopy theory of G-symmetric spectra (that is, symmetric spectra with a G-action) for a finite group G, as a model for equivariant stable homotopy with respect to a G-set universe. This model lies in between Mandell's equivariant symmetric spectra and the G-orthogonal spectra of Mandell and May and is Quillen equivalent to the two. We further discuss equivariant semistability, construct model structures on module, algebra and commutative algebra categories and describe the homotopical properties of the multiplicative norm in this context.     

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.     

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.     

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     

A stable approach to the equivariant Hopf theorem

Let G be a finite group. For semi-free G-manifolds which are oriented in the sense of Waner [S. Waner, Equivariant RO(G)-graded bordism theories, Topology and its Applications 17 (1984) 1-26], the homotopy classes of G-equivariant maps into a G-sphere are described in terms of their degrees, and the degrees occurring are characterised in terms of congruences. This is first shown to be a stable problem, and then solved using methods of equivariant stable homotopy theory with respect to a semi-free G-universe.     

The fibrewise Leray–Schauder index

The index constructed by Leray and Schauder in 1934 admits generalizations in two directions to infinite-dimensional fixed-point and vector field indices. We present the constructions of fibrewise equivariant indices of both types and illustrate the definitions by applications to the stable homo-topy Fuller index and Seiberg–Witten invariant. Dedicated to the memory of Jean Leray     

Smooth actions of finite Oliver groups on spheres

In this article, we deal with the following two questions. For smooth actions of a given finite group G on spheres S, which smooth manifolds F occur as the fixed point sets in S, and which real G-vector bundles ν over F occur as the equivariant normal bundles of F in S? We focus on the case G is an Oliver group and answer both questions under some conditions imposed on G, F, and ν. We construct smooth actions of G on spheres by making use of equivariant surgery, equivariant thickening, and Oliver's equivariant bundle extension method modified by an equivariant wegde sum construction and an equivariant bundle subtraction procedure.     

On equivariant indices of 1-forms on varieties

Given a G-invariant holomorphic 1-form with an isolated singular point on a germ of a complex-analytic G-variety with an isolated singular point (G is a finite group), its equivariant homological index and (reduced) equivariant radial index are defined as elements of the ring of complex representations of the group. We show that these indices coincide on a germ of a smooth complex analytic G-variety. This makes it possible to consider the difference between them as a version of the equivariant Milnor number of a germ of a G-variety with an isolated singular point.     

Euler homology

We geometrically construct a homology theory that generalizes the Euler characteristic mod 2 to objects in the unoriented cobordism ring of a topological space X. This homology theory Eh _* has coefficients in every nonnegative dimension. There exists a natural transformation that for X = pt assigns to each smooth manifold its Euler characteristic mod 2. The homology theory is constructed using cobordism of stratifolds, which are singular objects defined below. An isomorphism of graded -modules is shown for any CW-complex X. For discrete groups G, we also define an equivariant version of the homology theory Eh _*, generalizing the equivariant Euler characteristic.     

The relation between the Baum-Connes Conjecture and the Trace Conjecture

We prove a version of the L ²-index Theorem of Atiyah, which uses the universal center-valued trace instead of the standard trace. We construct for G-equivariant K-homology an equivariant Chern character, which is an isomorphism and lives over the ring ℤ⊂λ ^G ⊂ℚ obtained from the integers by inverting the orders of all finite subgroups of G. We use these two results to show that the Baum-Connes Conjecture implies the modified Trace Conjecture, which says that the image of the standard trace K ₀(C ^* _r (G))→ℝ takes values in λ ^G . The original Trace Conjecture predicted that its image lies in the additive subgroup of ℝ generated by the inverses of all the orders of the finite subgroups of G, and has been disproved by Roy [15]. Oblatum 10-IV-2001 & 18-X-2001?Published online: 15 April 2002     

On based-free actions of compact lie groups on the hilbert cube

It is proved that a based-free action α of a given compact Lie groupG on the Hilbert cubeQ is equivalent to the standard based-free action σ if and only if the orbit spaceQ ₀/α of the free partQ ₀=Q* is aQ-manifold having the proper homotopy type of the orbit spaceQ ₀/σ. The existence of an equivariant retraction (Q ₀, σ)→(Q ₀, α) is established. It is proved that for any TikhonovG-spaceX the family of all equivariant mapsX→ conG separates the points and the closed sets inX. Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 65, No. 2, pp. 163–174, February, 1999.     

On Injective and Cofibrant Equivariant Minimal Models

Let X be a G-connected nilpotent simplicial set, where G is a finite Hamiltonian group. We construct a cofibrant equivariant minimal model of X with the strong homotopy type of the injective minimal model of X defined by Triantafillou.     

The equivariant homotopy type of <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">ANR</Emphasis>’s for compact group actions

We prove that if G is a compact Hausdorff group then every G-ANR has the G-homotopy type of a G-CW complex. This is applied to extend the James–Segal G-homotopy equivalence theorem to the case of arbitrary compact group actions. The first author was supported in part by grant U42563-F from CONACYT (Mexico).     

On shadowing property for inverse limit spaces

We study here the G-shadowing property of the shift map σ on the inverse limit space X _f, generated by an equivariant self-map f on a metric G-space X.      

The Universal Functorial Equivariant Lefschetz Invariant

We introduce the universal functorial equivariant Lefschetz invariant for endomorphisms of finite proper G-CW-complexes, where G is a discrete group. We use K₀ of the category of “ ϕ -endomorphisms of finitely generated free RΠ(G, X)-modules”. We derive results about fixed points of equivariant endomorphisms of cocompact proper smooth G-manifolds. Received: February 2006