Department of Mathematics, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602 ; Mathematisches Institut der Universität, Im Neuenheimer Feld 288, D--69120 Heidelberg, Federal Republic of Germany
Abstract:
Suppose that is a compact Lie group or a discrete group of finite virtual cohomological dimension and that is a field of characteristic . Suppose that is a set of elementary abelian -subgroups such that the cohomology is detected on the centralizers of the elements of . Assume also that is closed under conjugation and that is in whenever some subgroup of is in . Then there exists a regular element in the cohomology ring such that the restriction of to an elementary abelian -subgroup is not nilpotent if and only if is in . The converse of the result is a theorem of Lannes, Schwartz and the second author. The results have several implications for the depth and associated primes of the cohomology rings.