On Towers Approximating Homological Localizations

Our object of study is the natural tower which, for any givenmap f:AB and each space X, starts with the localization of Xwith respect to f and converges to X itself. These towers canbe used to produce approximations to localization with respectto any generalized homology theory E_*, yielding, for example,an analogue of Quillen's plus-construction for E_*. We discussin detail the case of ordinary homology with coefficients inZ/p or Z1/p]. Our main tool is a comparison theorem for nullificationfunctors (that is, localizations with respect to maps of theform f:Apt), which allows us, among other things, to generalizeNeisendorfer's observation that p-completion of simply-connectedspaces coincides with nullification with respect to a Moorespace M(Z1/p], 1).