It is a survey of the results on the classification of stable homotopy types of polyhedra of small dimensions, mainly obtained by H.-J. Baues and the author. The proofs are based on the technique of matrix problems (bimodule categories).
In this paper, we study the stable homotopy types of $\mathbf{F}^4_{n(2)}$-polyhedra, i.e., $(n-1)$-connected, at most $(n+4)$-dimensional polyhedra with 2-torsion free homologies. We are able to classify the indecomposable $\mathbf{F}^4_{n(2)}$-polyhedra. The proof relies on the matrix problem technique which was developed in the classification of representaions of algebras and applied to homotopy theory by Baues and Drozd.
In this paper we address the classification problem for locally compact (n-1)-connected CW-complexes with dimension less or equal than n+2 up to proper homotopy type. We obtain complete classification theorems in terms of purely algebraic data in those cases where the representation type of the involved algebra is finite. For this we define new quadratic functors in controlled algebra and new homotopy and cohomology invariants in proper homotopy theory.
We raise the problem of realisability of rings as $\{X,X\}$ the ring of stable homotopy classes of self-maps of a space $X$. By focusing on $A_n^2$-polyhedra, we show that the direct sum of three endomorphism rings of abelian groups, one of which must be free, is realisable as $\{X,X\}$ modulo the acyclic maps. We also show that $\mathbb{F}_p^3$ is not realisable in the setting of finite type $A_n^2$-polyhedra, for $p$ any prime.
We prove a conjecture of Bahri, Bendersky, Cohen and Gitler: if K is a shifted simplicial complex on n vertices, X_1,..., X_n are spaces and CX_i is the cone on X_i, then the polyhedral product determined by K and the pairs (CX_i,X_i) is homotopy equivalent to a wedge of suspensions of smashes of the X_i's. This generalises earlier work of the two authors in the special case where each X_i is a loop space. Connections are made to toric topology, combinatorics, and classical homotopy theory.
Let $X$ be a finite type $A_n^2$-polyhedron, $n \geq 2$. In this paper we study the quotient group $\mathcal{E}(X)/\mathcal{E}_*(X)$, where $\mathcal{E}(X)$ is the group of self-homotopy equivalences of $X$ and $\mathcal{E}_*(X)$ the subgroup of self-homotopy equivalences inducing the identity on the homology groups of $X$. We show that not every group can be realised as $\mathcal{E}(X)$ or $\mathcal{E}(X)/\mathcal{E}_*(X)$ for $X$ an $A_n^2$-polyhedron, $n\ge 3$, and specific results are obtained for $n=2$.
In this paper, we compute the homology group and cohomology algebra of various polyhedral product objects uniformly from the point of view of diagonal tensor product. As applications, we introduce the polyhedral product method into commutative algebra and show that the homotopy types of polyhedral product spaces depend on not only the homotopy type of each summand pair but also on the character coproduct of the pair.
We consider genera of polyhedra (finite cell complexes) in the stable homotopy category. Namely, the genus of a polyhedron X is the class of polyhedra Y such that all localizations of Y are stably isomorphic to the corresponding localizations of X. We prove that Y is in the genus of X if and only if the wedge XvB is stably isomorphic to YvB, where B is the wedge of all spheres S^n such that the n-th stable homotopy group of X is not torsion. We also prove that if XvX and XvY are stably isomorphic, so are also X and Y. Several examples of calculations of genera are considered.
We obtain complete topological classification of states of nematic liquid crystal in the geometry of periodic array of rectangular posts between two parallel slabs, with tangent or normal boundary conditions. This classification has applications in bi-stable pos-aligned liquid crystal display design and have technological significance. Methods used in classification are those of algebraic topology and go beyond relative homotopy groups.
We consider a certain class of simplicial complexes which includes the independence complexes of forests. We show that if a simplicial complex $K$ belongs to this class, then the polyhedral join $\mathcal{Z}^*_{K}(\underline{X}, \emptyset)$ is homotopy equivalent to a wedge sum of CW complexes of the form $Σ^r X_{i_1} * X_{i_2} * \cdots * X_{i_k}$, where $\underline{X}$ is a family $\{X_i\}_{i \in V(K)}$ of CW complexes and $Σ$ denotes the unreduced suspension. This result is applied to study the homotopy type of the independence complex of the lexicographic product $G[H]$ of a graph $H$ over …
Let $M$ be a smooth closed orientable surface. Let $F$ be the space of Morse functions on $M$ having fixed number of critical points of each index, moreover at least $χ(M)+1$ critical points are labeled by different labels (enumerated). A notion of a skew cylindric-polyhedral complex, which generalizes the notion of a polyhedral complex, is introduced. The skew cylindric-polyhedral complex $\mathbb{\widetilde K}$ (the "complex of framed Morse functions"), associated with the space $F$, is defined. In the case when $M=S^2$, the polyhedron $\mathbb{\widetilde K}$ is finite; its Euler characteris…
In this paper, we define homeology group, reduced homeology group, cohomeology group and reduced cohomeology group on finite simpicial complexes and prove that these groups are homeomorphism invariants of polyhedra. We also define homeotopy type of polyhedra which is finer than homotopy type but coarser than homeomorphism class.
We give combinatorial models for the homotopy type of complements of elliptic arrangements (i.e., certain sets of abelian subvarieties in a product of elliptic curves). We give a presentation of the fundamental group of such spaces and, as an application, we treat the case of ordered configuration spaces of elliptic curves. Our models are finite polyhedral CW complexes, and our combinatorial tools of choice are acyclic categories (small categories without loops). As a stepping stone, we give a characterization of which acyclic categories arise as face categories of polyhedral CW complexes.
In this paper we study the global structure of the stable homotopy theory of spectra. We establish criteria for when the homotopy theory associated to a given stable model category agrees with the classical stable homotopy theory of spectra. One sufficient condition is that the associated homotopy category is equivalent to the stable homotopy category as a triangulated category with an action of the ring of stable homotopy groups of spheres. In other words, the classical stable homotopy theory, with all of its higher order information, is determined by the homotopy category as a triangulated c…
We show how matrix problems (bimodule categories) can be used in studying triangulated categories. Then we apply the general technique to the classification of stable homotopy types of polyhedra, find out the "representation types" of such problems and give a description of stable homotopy types in finite and tame cases.
We show the "non-existence" results are essential for all the previous known applications of the Bauer-Furuta stable homotopy Seiberg-Witten invariants. As an example, we present a unified proof of the adjunction inequalities. We also show that the nilpotency phenomenon explains why the Bauer-Furuta stable homotopy Seiberg-Witten invariants are not enough to prove 11/8-conjecture.
The purpose of this note is to give a description of the stable homotopy group of some $2$-stage Postnikov systems for a range of dimensions. The considered $2$-stage Postnikov systems has the (weak) homotopy type of a generalized Eilenberg-Mac lane space, then their stable homotopy groups can be calculated by the stable homotopy groups of generalized Eilenberg-Mac lane spaces.
We discuss the current state of knowledge of stable homotopy groups of spheres. We describe a new computational method that yields a streamlined computation of the first 61 stable homotopy groups, and gives new information about the stable homotopy groups in dimensions 62 through 90. The method relies more heavily on machine computations than previous methods, and is therefore less prone to error. The main mathematical tool is the Adams spectral sequence.
We present a new approach to simple homotopy theory of polyhedra using finite topological spaces. We define the concept of collapse of a finite space and prove that this new notion corresponds exactly to the concept of a simplicial collapse. More precisely, we show that a collapse of finite spaces induces a simplicial collapse of their associated simplicial complexes. Moreover, a simplicial collapse induces a collapse of the associated finite spaces. This establishes a one-to-one correspondence between simple homotopy types of finite simplicial complexes and simple equivalence classes of finit…
We survey various approaches to axiomatic stable homotopy theory, with examples including derived categories, categories of (possibly equivariant or localized) spectra, and stable categories of modular representations of finite groups. We focus mainly on representability theorems, localisation, Bousfield classes, and nilpotence.
Lie groupoids generalize transformation groups, and so provide a natural language for studying orbifolds and other noncommutative geometries. In this paper, we investigate a connection between orbifolds and equivariant stable homotopy theory using such groupoids. A different sort of twisted sector, along with a classical theorem of tom Dieck, allows for a natural definition of stable orbifold homotopy groups, and motivates defining extended unstable orbifold homotopy groups generalizing previous definitions.
For any finite group G, we show that the 2-local G-equivariant stable homotopy category, indexed on a complete G-universe, has a unique equivariant model in the sense of Quillen model categories. This means that the suspension functor, homotopy cofiber sequences and the stable Burnside category determine all "higher order structure" of the 2-local G-equivariant stable homotopy category, such as the equivariant homotopy types of function G-spaces. The theorem can be seen as an equivariant version of Schwede's rigidity theorem at the prime 2.
This paper contains an overview of background from stable homotopy theory used by Freed--Hopkins in their work on invertible extended topological field theories. We provide a working guide to the stable homotopy category, to the Steenrod algebra and to computations using the Adams spectral sequence. Many examples are worked out in detail to illustrate the techniques.
We investigate a new case of rigidity in stable homotopy theory which is the rigidity of the $K(1)$-local stable homotopy category $\mathrm{Ho}(L_{K(1)}\mathrm{Sp})$ at $p=2$. In other words, we show that recovering higher homotopy information by just looking at the triangulated structure of $\mathrm{Ho}(L_{K(1)}\mathrm{Sp})$ is possible, which is a property that only few interesting stable model categories are known to possess.
In this article we study thick ideals defined by periodic self maps in the stable motivic homotopy category over $\mathbb{C}$. In addition, we extend some results of Ruth Joachimi about the relation between thick ideals defined by motivic Morava K-theories and the preimages of the thick ideals in the stable homotopy category under Betti realization.
We analyze the topology and geometry of a polyhedron of dimension 2 according to the minimum size of a cover by PL collapsible polyhedra. We provide partial characterizations of the polyhedra of dimension 2 that can be decomposed as the union of two PL collapsible subpolyhedra in terms of their simple homotopy type and certain local properties. In the process, a special class of polyhedra of dimension 2 appears naturally. We give a combinatorial description of the spaces in this class, which includes all closed surfaces and the complexes associated to one-relator presentations.
We prove a nilpotency theorem for the Bauer-Furuta stable homotopy Seiberg-Witten invariants for smooth closed 4-manifolds with trivial first Betti number.
In this survey, we review how the global structure of the stable homotopy category gives rise to the chromatic filtration. We then discuss computational tools used in the study of local chromatic homotopy theory, leading up to recent developments in the field. Along the way, we illustrate the key methods and results with explicit examples.
Using techniques in motivic homotopy theory, especially the theorem of Gheorghe, the second and the third author on the isomorphism between motivic Adams spectral sequence for $Cτ$ and the algebraic Novikov spectral sequence for $BP_*$, we compute the classical and motivic stable homotopy groups of spheres from dimension 0 to 90, except for some carefully enumerated uncertainties.
We survey computations of stable motivic homotopy groups over various fields. The main tools are the motivic Adams spectral sequence, the motivic Adams-Novikov spectral sequence, and the effective slice spectral sequence. We state some projects for future study.
We show that the monoidal product on the stable homotopy category of spectra is essentially unique. This strengthens work of this author with Schwede on the uniqueness of models of the stable homotopy theory of spectra. As an application we show that with an added assumption about underlying model structures Margolis' axioms uniquely determine the stable homotopy category of spectra up to monoidal equivalence. Also, the equivalences constructed here give a unified construction of the known equivalences of the various symmetric monoidal categories of spectra (S-modules, \W-spaces, orthogonal sp…
Collection of (equivariant) $\rm{PL}$-mappings admitting a relative abelian, cyclic, quaternionic, bicyclic, and quaternionic-cyclic structures are constructed.
We describe the first stem of the stable homotopy groups of spheres by using some Puppe sequences, Thom complexes, K-Theory and Adams operations following the ideas of J. Frank Adams. We also touch upon the second and the third stems in this perspective. Neither spectral squences nor Steenrod operations are used.
This paper is a survey of the stable homotopy theory of BG for G a finite group. It is based on a series of lectures given at the Summer School associated with the Topology Conference at the Vietnam National University, Hanoi, August 2004.
The Kervaire Problem is an unsolved problem in Stable Homotopy Theory. The first interesting example is in dimension $30$. There exists a closed stably-parallelizable manifold $\tilde{M}^{30}$ with Arf-Kervaire invariant 1. It is unknown, if such a manifold exists in dimension $126$? The goal of the paper is to recall the construction of the manifold $M^{30}$ and investigate its properties.
We use the $C_2$-equivariant Adams spectral sequence to compute part of the $C_2$-equivariant stable homotopy groups $π^{C_2}_{n,n}$. This allows us to recover results of Bredon and Landweber on the image of the geometric fixed-points map from the equivariant homotopy group $π^{C_2}_{n,n}$ to the classical $π_0$. We also recover results of Mahowald and Ravenel on the Mahowald root invariants of the elements $2^k$.
We establish a differential $d_2(D_1)=h_0^2h_3g_2$ in the $51$-stem of the Adams spectral sequence at the prime $2$, which gives the first correct calculation of the stable 51 and 52 stems. This differential is remarkable since we know of no way to prove it without recourse to the motivic Adams spectral sequence. It is the last undetermined differential in the range of the first author's detailed calculations of the $n$-stems for $n<60$ [6]. This note advertises the use of the motivic Adams spectral sequence to obtain information about classical stable homotopy groups.
In this paper, we classify the congruence classes of $\mathbf{F}^5_{n(2)}$-polyhedra, i.e. $(n-1)$-connected, at most $(n+5)$-dimensional polyhedra with 2-torsion free homology. The proof relies on the matrix problem technique which was developed in the classification of representations of algebras and applied to homotopy theory by Baues and Drozd.
In these lectures we give an exposition of the seminal work of Devinatz, Hopkins and Smith which is surrounding the classification of the thick subcategories of finite spectra in stable homotopy theory. The lectures are expository and are aimed primarily at non-homotopy theorists. We begin with an introduction to the stable homotopy category of spectra, and then talk about the celebrated thick subcategory theorem and discuss a few applications to the structure of the Bousfield lattice. Most of the results that we discuss here were conjectured by Ravenel \cite{rav} and were proved by Devinatz, …
Building on the work of Martin Stolz, we develop the basics of equivariant stable homotopy theory starting from the simple idea that a G- spectrum should just be a spectrum with an action of G on it, in contrast to the usual approach in which the definition of a G-spectrum depends on a choice of universe.
This paper is an English translation of chapter nine of the book "Adams spectral sequence and stable homotopy groups of spheres" by Jinkun Lin (in Chinese)(Sciences Press, Beijing 2007). In this paper, a sequence of new indecomposable families in the stable homotopy groups of spheres such as h_0h_n,h_nb_n,h_0h_nh_m,h_0(h_mb_{n-1}-b_{m-1}h_n) families was detected. The proof of all the detections was stated in this paper in based on several published papers by the author.
We study thick ideals in the stable motivic homotopy category SH(k) and in its subcategories of compact and of finite cellular objects. If k is a subfield of the complex or even the real numbers, then using comparison functors we find thick ideals corresponding to thick ideals in classical or Z/2-equivariant stable homotopy theory, respectively. We also study motivic Morava K-theories AK(n), for which we prove the motivic analogue of the decomposition of the Bousfield class of E(n) into Bousfield classes of K(i)'s over the complex numbers if p>2. In that case we also prove that AK(n)-acyclicit…
Greenlees defined an abelian category A whose derived category is equivalent to the rational S^1-equivariant stable homotopy category whose objects represent rational S^1-equivariant cohomology theories. We show that in fact the model category of differential graded objects in A (dgA) models the whole rational S^1-equivariant stable homotopy theory. That is, we show that there is a Quillen equivalence between dgA and the model category of rational S^1-equivariant spectra, before the quasi-isomorphisms or stable equivalences have been inverted. This implies that all of the higher order structur…
We provide a calculational method for rational stable equivariant homotopy theory for a torus G based on the homology of the Borel construction on fixed points. More precisely we define an abelian torsion model, A_t(G) of finite injective dimension, a homology theory \piAt_* taking values in A_t(G) based on the homology of the Borel construction, and a finite Adams spectral sequence Ext_{A_t(G)}^{*,*}(\piAt_*(X), \piAt_*(Y)) ==> [X,Y]^G_* for rational G-spectra X and Y.
We study $p$-localizations, where $p$ is an odd prime, of the full subcategories $S^n$ of stable homotopy category consisting of CW-complexes having cells in $n$ successive dimensions. Using the technique of triangulated categories and matrix problems we classify atoms (indecomposable objects) in $S_p^n$ for $n\le 4(p-1)$ and show that for $n>4(p-1)$ such classification is wild in the sense of the representation theory.
Due to the deep work of Tillmann, Madsen, Weiss and Galatius, the cohomology of the stable mapping class group $\gaminf$ is known with rational or finite field coefficients. Little is known about the integral cohomology. In this paper, we study the first four cohomology groups. Also, we compute the first few steps of the Postnikov tower of $B \gaminf^+$, the Quillen plus construction applied to $B \gaminf$. Our method relies on the Madsen-Weiss theorem, a few known computations of stable homotopy groups of spheres and projective spaces and on a certain action of the binary icosahedral group on…
A geometric approach to the stable homotopy groups of spheres is developed in this paper, based on the Pontryagin-Thom construction. The task of this approach is to obtain an alternative proof of the Hill-Hopkins-Ravenel theorem [H-H-R] on Kervaire invariants in all dimensions, except, possibly, a finite number of dimensions. In the framework of this approach, the Adams theorem on the Hopf invariant is studied, for all dimensions with the exception of 15, 31, 63, 127. The new approach is based on the methods of geometric topology.
We classify thick tensor ideals of finite objects in the category of rational torus-equivariant spectra, showing that they are completely determined by geometric isotropy. This is essentially equivalent to showing that the Balmer spectrum is the set of closed subgroups under cotoral inclusion. Corresponding statements are deduced for toral spectra for general groups.
The symmetric spectra introduced by Hovey, Shipley and Smith are a convenient model for the stable homotopy category with a nice associative and commutative smash product on the point set level and a compatible Quillen closed model structure. About the only disadvantage of this model is that the stable equivalences cannot be defined by inverting those morphisms which induce isomorphisms on homotopy groups, because this would leave too many homotopy types. In this sense the naively defined homotopy groups are often `wrong`, and then their precise relationship to the `true` homotopy groups (i.e.…