In this paper we deal with the action of the symmetric group on the cohomology of the configuration space $C_n(d)$ of $n$ points in $\mathbb{R}^d$. This topic has been studied by several authors (see the introduction). On the cohomology algebra $H^*(C_n(d); \mathbb{C})$ there is, in addition to the natural $S_n$-action, an extended action of $S_{n+1}$; this was first shown for the case when $d$ is even by Mathieu, Robinson and Whitehouse and the second author. For the case when $d$ is odd it was shown by Mathieu (anyway we will give an elementary algebraic construction of the extended action for this case). The purpose of this article is to present some results that can be obtained, in an elementary way, exploiting the interplay between the extended action and the standard action.
We give a formula for the character of the representation of the symmetric group $S_n$ on each isotypic component of the cohomology of the set of regular elements of a maximal torus of $SL_n$, with respect to the action of the centre.
We relate the generating functions of the dimensions of the Hochschild cohomology in any fixed degree of the symmetric groups with those of blocks of the symmetric groups. We show that the first Hochschild cohomology of a positive defect block of a symmetric group is non-zero, answering in the affirmative a question of the third author. To do this, we prove a formula expressing the dimension of degree one Hochschild cohomology as a sum of dimensions of centres of blocks of smaller symmetric groups. This in turn is a consequence of a general formula that makes more precise a theorem of our prev…
We give a combinatorial description (including explicit differential-form bases) for the cohomology groups of the space of n distinct nonzero complex numbers, with coefficients in rank-one local systems which are of finite monodromy around the coordinate hyperplanes and trivial monodromy around all other hyperplanes. In the case where the local system is equivariant for the symmetric group, we write the cohomology groups as direct sums of inductions of one-dimensional characters of subgroups. This relies on an equivariant description of the Orlik-Solomon algebras of full monomial reflection gr…
We give a recursive algorithm for computing the Orlik-Terao algebra of the Coxeter arrangement of type A_{n-1} as a graded representation of S_n, and we give a conjectural description of this representation in terms of the cohomology of the configuration space of n points in SU(2) modulo translation. We also give a version of this conjecture for more general graphical arrangements.
Let PConf^n M be the configuration space of ordered n-tuples of distinct points on a smooth manifold M admitting a nowhere-vanishing vector field. We show that the ith cohomology group with coefficients in a field H^i(PConf^n M, k) is an N-module, where N is the category of noncommutative finite sets introduced by Pirashvili and Richter. Studying the representation theory of N, we obtain new polynomiality results for the cohomology groups H^i(PConf^n M, k). In the case of unordered configuration space Conf^n M = (PConf^n M)/S_n and rational coefficients, we show that cohomology dimension in fi…
Cohomology of Specht modules for the symmetric group can be equated in low degrees with corresponding cohomology for the Borel subgroup B of the general linear group GL_d(k), but this has never been exploited to prove new symmetric group results. Using work of Doty on the submodule structure of symmetric powers of the natural GL_d(k) module together with work of Andersen on cohomology for B and its Frobenius kernels, we prove new results about H^i(Σ_d, S^λ). We recover work of James in the case i=0. Then we prove two stability theorems, one of which is a "generic cohomology" result for Specht …
Bredon cohomology is a cohomology theory that applies to topological spaces equipped with the group actions. For any group G, given a real linear representation V , the configuration space of V has a natural diagonal G-action. In the paper we study this group action on the configuration space and give a decomposition of the homology Bredon coefficient system of the configuration space and apply this to compute rational Bredon cohomology of the configuration space for small nonabelian group G.
We prove that the center of a regular block of parabolic category O for the general linear Lie algebra is isomorphic to the cohomology algebra of a corresponding Springer fiber. This was conjectured by Khovanov. We also find presentations for the centers of singular blocks, which are cohomology algebras of Spaltenstein varieties.
We use the dimension and the Lie algebra structure of the first Hochschild cohomology group to distinguish some algebras of dihedral, semi-dihedral and quaternion type up to stable equivalence of Morita type. In particular, we complete the classification of algebras of dihedral type that was mostly determined by Zhou and Zimmermann.
In this paper we will derive an explicit description of the genuine projective representations of the symmetric group $S_n$ using Dirac cohomology and the branching graph for the irreducible genuine projective representations of $S_n$. In 2015 Ciubotaru and He, using the extended Dirac index, showed that the characters of the projective representations of $S_n$ are related to the characters of elliptic graded modules. We derived the branching graph using Dirac theory and combinatorics relating to the cohomology of Borel varieties $\mathcal{B}_e$ of $\mathfrak{g}$ and were able to use Dirac coh…
We describe the Chow rings of moduli spaces of ordered configurations of points on the projective line for arbitrary (sufficiently generic) stabilities. As an application, we exhibit such a moduli space admitting two small desingularizations with non-isomorphic cohomology rings.
Let p be a prime. Let FpSp be the group algebra of the symmetric group over the finite field Fp with |Fp|=p$. Let Fp be the trivial FpSp-module. We present a projective resolution PRes Fp of the module Fp and equip the Yoneda algebra Ext(Fp,Fp) with an A(oo)-structure such that Ext(Fp,Fp) becomes a minimal model of the dg-algebra Hom(PRes Fp, PRes Fp).
Let $A$ be a finite dimensional symmetric Hopf algebra over a field $k$. We show that there are $A$-modules whose Tate cohomology is not finitely generated over the Tate cohomology ring of $A$. However, we also construct $A$-modules which have finitely generated Tate cohomology. It turns out that if a module in a connected component of the stable Auslander-Reiten quiver associated to $A$ has finitely generated Tate cohomology, then so does every module in that component. We apply some of these finite generation results on Tate cohomology to an algebra defined by Radford and to the restricted u…
This paper studies representation stability in the sense of Church and Farb for representations of the symmetric group $S_n$ on the cohomology of the configuration space of $n$ ordered points in $\mathbf{R}^d$. This cohomology is known to vanish outside of dimensions divisible by $d-1$; it is shown here that the $S_n$-representation on the $i(d-1)^{st}$ cohomology stabilizes sharply at $n=3i$ (resp. $n=3i+1$) when $d$ is odd (resp. even). The result comes from analyzing $S_n$-representations known to control the cohomology: the Whitney homology of set partition lattices for $d$ even, and the h…
In the computation of the intersection cohomology of Shimura varieties, or of the $L^2$ cohomology of equal rank locally symmetric spaces, combinatorial identities involving averaged discrete series characters of real reductive groups play a large technical role. These identities can become very complicated and are not always well-understood (see for example the appendix of [8]). We propose a geometric approach to these identities in the case of Siegel modular varieties using the combinatorial properties of the Coxeter complex of the symmetric group. Apart from some introductory remarks about …
The goal of the course was a review of results mainly due to M. Olbrich and the first author. We consider a discrete cocompact subgroup $Γ$ of a semisimple Lie group $G$. We relate the group cohomology of $Γ$ with coefficients in the maximal globalization of a representation of $G$ with the multiplicities of unitary representations of $G$ in $L^2(G/Γ)$. Explicit calculations are given in the case $G=SL(2,R)$. In the rank-one case we state a version of the Selberg trace formula, discuss the singularities of the Selberg zeta-functions, and state their relation with the cohomology of $Γ$ in princ…
For a topological space $X$, we introduce a criterion for the $\rm FI$ module $H^i({\rm Conf}_n(X))$ to be finitely generated and give several applications. For instance, if $C$ is a finite connected $CW$ complex, then $X = C \times \mathbb{R}^2$ satisfies the criterion. Our main tool is a spectral sequence that we derive from the homological algebra of the partition lattice.
We construct chain maps between the bar and Koszul resolutions for a quantum symmetric algebra (skew polynomial ring). This construction uses a recursive technique involving explicit formulae for contracting homotopies. We use these chain maps to compute the Gerstenhaber bracket, obtaining a quantum version of the Schouten-Nijenhuis bracket on a symmetric algebra (polynomial ring). We compute brackets also in some cases for skew group algebras arising as group extensions of quantum symmetric algebras.
Let X be a locally symmetric space associated to a reductive algebraic group G defined over Q. L-modules are a combinatorial analogue of constructible sheaves on the reductive Borel-Serre compactification of X; they were introduced in [math.RT/0112251]. That paper also introduced the micro-support of an L-module, a combinatorial invariant that to a great extent characterizes the cohomology of the associated sheaf. The theory has been successfully applied to solve a number of problems concerning the intersection cohomology and weighted cohomology of the reductive Borel-Serre compactification [m…
We show that dualising transfer maps in Hochschild cohomology of symmetric algebras commutes with Tate duality. This extends a well-known result in group cohomology.
Let $Σ_d$ denote the symmetric group of degree $d$ and let $K$ be a field of positive characteristic $p$. For $p>2$ we give an explicit description of the first cohomology group $H^1(Σ_d,{\rm{Sp}}(λ))$, of the Specht module ${\rm{Sp}}(λ)$ over $K$, labelled by a partition $λ$ of $d$. We also give a sufficient condition for the cohomology to be non-zero for $p=2$ and we find a lower bound for the dimension. Our method is to proceed by comparison with the cohomology for the general linear group $G(n)$ over $K$ and then to reduce to the calculation of ${\rm{Ext}}^1_{B(n)}(S^d E,K_λ)$, where $B(n)…
In this paper one proves a special case of a conjecture by Nicolas Bergeron. This conjecture is a kind of automorphic Lefschetz property. It relates the primitive cohomology of a locally symmetric manifolds modeled on $U(p,q+r)$ to the primitive cohomology of some of its totally geodesic submanifolds that are locally symmetric and modeled on $U(p,q)$.
We combine recent developments on weakly symmetric pseudo--riemannian nilmanifolds with with geometric methods for construction of unitary representations on square integrable Dolbeault cohomology spaces. This runs parallel to construction of discrete series representations on spaces of square integrable harmonic forms with values in holomorphic vector bundles over flag domains. Some special cases had been described by Satake in 1971 and the author in 1975. Here we develop a theory of pseudo--riemannian nilmanifolds of complex type and the nilmanifold versions of flag domains. We construct the…
The main result of this paper is the existence of Galois representations associated with the mod $p$ (or mod $p^m$) cohomology of the locally symmetric spaces for $\GL_n$ over a totally real or CM field, proving conjectures of Ash and others. Following an old suggestion of Clozel, recently realized by Harris-Lan-Taylor-Thorne for characteristic 0 cohomology classes, one realizes the cohomology of the locally symmetric spaces for $\GL_n$ as a boundary contribution of the cohomology of symplectic or unitary Shimura varieties, so that the key problem is to understand torsion in the cohomology of …
We identify the ring of odd symmetric functions introduced by Ellis and Khovanov as the space of skew polynomials fixed by a natural action of the Hecke algebra at q=-1. This allows us to define graded modules over the Hecke algebra at q=-1 that are `odd' analogs of the cohomology of type A Springer varieties. The graded module associated to the full flag variety corresponds to the quotient of the skew polynomial ring by the left ideal of nonconstant odd symmetric functions. The top degree component of the odd cohomology of Springer varieties is identified with the corresponding Specht module …
A famous theorem of Nakaoka asserts that the cohomology of the symmetric group stabilizes. The first author generalized this theorem to non-trivial coefficient systems, in the form of $\mathrm{FI}$-modules over a field, though one now obtains periodicity of the cohomology instead of stability. In this paper, we further refine these results. Our main theorem states that if $M$ is a finitely generated $\mathrm{FI}$-module over a noetherian ring $\mathbf{k}$ then $\bigoplus_{n \ge 0} \mathrm{H}^t(S_n, M_n)$ admits the structure of a $\mathbf{D}$-module, where $\mathbf{D}$ is the divided power alg…
An FI-module $V$ over a commutative ring $\bf{k}$ encodes a sequence $(V_n)_{n \geq 0}$ of representations of the symmetric groups $(\mathfrak{S}_n)_{n \geq 0}$ over $\bf{k}$. In this paper, we show that for a "finitely generated" FI-module $V$ over a field of characteristic $p$, the cohomology groups $H^t(\mathfrak{S}_n, V_n)$ are eventually periodic in $n$. We describe a recursive way to calculate the period and the periodicity range and show that the period is always a power of $p$. As an application, we show that if $\mathcal{M}$ is a compact, connected, oriented manifold of dimension $\ge…
The main result of this paper is an application of the topology of the space $Q(X)$ to obtain results for the cohomology of the symmetric group on $d$ letters, $Σ_d$, with `twisted' coefficients in various choices of Young modules and to show that these computations reduce to certain natural questions in representation theory. The authors extend classical methods for analyzing the homology of certain spaces $Q(X)$ with mod-$p$ coefficients to describe the homology $\HH_{\bullet}(Σ_d, V^{\otimes d})$ as a module for the general linear group $GL(V)$ over an algebraically closed field $k$ of char…
This expository article is an expanded version of talks given at the "Current Developments in Mathematics, 2002" conference. It gives an introduction to the (generalized) conjecture of Rapoport and Goresky-MacPherson which identifies the intersection cohomology of a real equal-rank Satake compactification of a locally symmetric space with that of the reductive Borel-Serre compactification. We motivate the conjecture with examples and then give an introduction to the various topics that are involved: intersection cohomology, the derived category, and compactifications of a locally symmetric spa…
This paper contains a thorough investigation of invariant distributions supported on limit sets of discrete groups acting convex cocompactly on symmetric spaces of negative curvature. It can be considered as a continuation of math.DG/9810146. Based on this investigation we provide proofs of the Hodge theoretic results for the cohomology of real hyperbolic manifolds announced in math.DG/0009038, improve the bounds for the critical exponents obtained by Corlette for the quaternionic and the Cayley case, compute the L^2-cohomology for the corresponding locally symmetric spaces, prove a version of…
This paper is concerned with the primitive cohomology of a smooth projective hypersurface considered as a linear representation for its automorphism group. Using the Lefschetz-Riemann-Roch formula, the character of this representation is described on each piece of the Hodge decomposition. A consequence about the existence of smooth symmetric hypersurfaces that are stable under the standard irreducible permutation representation of the symmetric group on homogeneous coordinates is drawn.
Following our approach to metric Lie algebras developed in math.DG/0312243 we propose a way of understanding pseudo-Riemannian symmetric spaces which are not semi-simple. We introduce cohomology sets (called quadratic cohomology) associated with orthogonal modules of Lie algebras with involution. Then we construct a functorial assignment which sends a pseudo-Riemannian symmetric space M to a triple consisting of (i) a Lie algebra with involution (of dimension much smaller than the dimension of the transvection group of M), (ii) a semi-simple orthogonal module of the Lie algebra with involution…
For a large class of good moduli spaces $X$ of symmetric stacks $\mathcal{X}$, we define noncommutative motives $\mathbb{D}^{\text{nc}}(X)$ which can be regarded as categorifications of the intersection cohomology of $X$. These motives are summands of noncommutative resolutions of singularities $\mathbb{D}(X)\subset D^b(\mathcal{X})$ of $X$. The category $\mathbb{D}(X)$ is a global analogue of the noncommutative resolutions of singularities of $V//G$ for $V$ a symmetric representation of a reductive group $G$ constructed by Špenko-Van den Bergh.
We describe the cohomology groups of a homogeneous vector bundle $E$ on any Hermitian symmetric variety $X=G/P$ of ADE type as the cohomology of a complex explicitly described. The main tool is the equivalence between the category of homogeneous bundles and the category of representations of a certain quiver ${\cal Q}_X$ with relations, whose vertices are the dominant weights of the reductive part of $P$. This equivalence was found in some cases by Bondal, Kapranov and Hille and we find the appropriate relations for any Hermitian symmetric variety, computing them explicitly for Grassmannians.
In this paper we revisit the cohomology groups of the moduli space of $n$-pointed curves of genus zero using the FI-module perspective introduced by Church-Ellenberg-Farb. We recover known results about the corresponding representations of the symmetric group.
