In this article we study locally compact abelian (LCA) groups from the viewpoint of derived categories, using that their category is quasi-abelian in the sense of J.-P. Schneiders. We define a well-behaved derived Hom-complex with values in the derived category of Hausdorff topological abelian groups. Furthermore we introduce a smallness condition for LCA groups and show that such groups have a natural tensor product and internal Hom which both admit derived versions.
Using algebraic and topological K-theory together with complex C^*-algebras, we prove that every abelian group may be realized as the centre of a strongly torsion generated group whose integral homology is zero in dimension one and isomorphic to two arbitrarily prescribed abelian groups in dimensions two and three.
We present a method for deciding when a regular abelian cover of a finite CW-complex has finite Betti numbers. To start with, we describe a natural parameter space for all regular covers of a finite CW-complex X, with group of deck transformations a fixed abelian group A, which in the case of free abelian covers of rank r coincides with the Grassmanian of r-planes in H^1(X,\Q). Inside this parameter space, there is a subset Ω_A^i(X) consisting of all the covers with finite Betti numbers up to degree i. Building on work of Dwyer and Fried, we show how to compute these sets in terms of the jump …
We describe some of the connections between the Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz invariants, the Dwyer-Fried invariants, and the cohomology support loci of a space X. Under suitable hypotheses, the geometric and homological finiteness properties of regular, free abelian covers of X can be expressed in terms of the resonance varieties, extracted from the cohomology ring of X. In general, though, translated components in the characteristic varieties affect the answer. We illustrate this theory in the setting of toric complexes, as well as smooth, complex projective and quasi-projective varieties, with…
We study homological approximations of the profinite completion of a limit group (see Thm.~A) and obtain the analogous of Bridson and Howie's Theorem for the profinite completion of a non-abelian limit group (see Thm.~B).
We prove that given any finite abelian group $A$ and any irreducible $3$-manifold $M$ with empty or toroidal boundary which is not a graph manifold there exists a finite cover $M' \to M$ so that $A$ is a direct factor in $H_1(M',\mathbb{Z})$. This generalizes results of Sun and of Friedl-Herrmann.
A group G has homological dimension less or equal to 1 if it is locally free. We prove the converse provided that G satisfies the Atiyah Conjecture about L^2-Betti numbers. We also show that a finitely generated elementary amenable group G of cohomological dimension less or equal to 2 possesses a finite 2-dimensional model for BG and in particular that G is finitely presented and the trivial ZG-module Z has a 2-dimensional resolution by finitely generated free ZG-modules.
We give a criterion for bounding the homological finiteness length of certain HF-groups. This is used in two distinct contexts. Firstly, the homological finiteness length of a non-uniform lattice on a locally finite n-dimensional contractible CW-complex is less than n. In dimension two it solves a conjecture of Farb, Hruska and Thomas. As another corollary, we obtain an upper bound for the homological finiteness length of arithmetic groups over function fields. This gives an easier proof of a result of Bux and Wortman that solved a long-standing conjecture. Secondly, the criterion is applied t…
Let $X$ be a compact torsion abelian group. In this paper, we show that an extension of $F_{p}$ by $X$ splits where $F_{p}$ is the p-adic number group and $p$ a prime number. Also, we show that an extension of a torsion-free, non-divisible LCA group by $X$ is not split.
Let $Σ$ be a surface with either boundary or marked points, equipped with an arbitrary framing. In this note we determine the action of the associated "framed mapping class group" on the homology of $Σ$ relative to its boundary (respectively marked points), describing the image as the kernel of a certain crossed homomorphism related to classical spin structures. Applying recent work of the authors, we use this to describe the monodromy action of the orbifold fundamental group of a stratum of abelian differentials on the relative periods.
Is every locally compact abelian group which admits a symplectic self-duality isomorphic to the product of a locally compact abelian group and its Pontryagin dual? Several sufficient conditions, covering all the typical applications are found. Counterexamples are produced by studying a seemingly unrelated question about the structure of maximal isotropic subgroups of finite abelian groups with symplectic self-duality (where the original question always has an affirmative answer).
This paper contains several results about the Chabauty space of a general locally compact abelian group. Notably, we determine its topological dimension, we characterize when it is totally disconnected or connected; we characterize isolated points.
Schur's Theorem and its generalisation, Baer's Theorem, are distinguished results in group theory, connecting the upper central quotients with the lower central series. The aim of this paper is to generalise these results in two different directions, using novel methods related with the non-abelian tensor product. In particular, we prove a version of Schur-Baer Theorem for finitely generated groups. Then, we apply these newly obtained results to describe the $k$-nilpotent multiplier, for $k\geq 2$, and other invariants of groups.
In this note we show that if $G$ is a countably infinite abelian group such that $nG=0$ for some integer $n$, then the only locally minimal group topology on $G$ is the discrete one.
It is well known that every locally compact abelian group L can be decomposed as L_1 \oplus R^n, where L_1 contains a compact-open subgroup. In this paper, we use this decomposition to study the topological group Aut(L) of automorphisms of L, equipped with the g-topology. We show that Aut(L) is topologically isomorphic to a matrix group with entries from Aut(L_1), Hom(L_1, R^n), Hom(R^n, L_1), and GL_n(R), respectively. It is also shown that the algebraic portion of the decomposition is not specific to locally compact abelian groups, but is also true for objects with a well-behaved decompositi…
For a locally quasi-convex (lqc) abelian group $G$, we give the first description of all compatible group topologies on $G$ and apply this result to the Mackey group problem for lqc groups. We characterize lqc abelian groups which are Mackey groups or admit a Mackey group topology and provide a characterization of two Mackey groups whose product is Mackey. We obtain the first characterization of locally convex spaces which are Mackey groups.
Locally compact abelian groups are classified in which the sum of any two closed subgroups is itself closed. This amounts to reproving and extending results by Yu.~N.~Mukhin from 1970. Namely we contribute a complete classification of all totally disconnected \lca\ groups with $X+Y$ closed for any closed subgroups $X$ and $Y$.
We classify the locally compact second-countable (l.c.s.c.) groups $A$ that are abelian and topologically characteristically simple. All such groups $A$ occur as the monolith of some soluble l.c.s.c. group $G$ of derived length at most $3$; with known exceptions (specifically, when $A$ is $\mathbb{Q}^n$ or its dual for some $n \in \mathbb{N}$), we can take $G$ to be compactly generated. This amounts to a classification of the possible isomorphism types of abelian chief factors of l.c.s.c. groups, which is of particular interest for the theory of compactly generated locally compact groups.
We study the locally compact abelian groups in the class $\mathfrak E_{<\infty}$, that is, having only continuous endomorphisms of finite topological entropy, and in its subclass $\mathfrak E_0$, that is, having all continuous endomorphisms with vanishing topological entropy. We discuss the reduction of the problem to the case of periodic locally compact abelian groups, and then to locally compact abelian $p$-groups. We show that locally compact abelian $p$-groups of finite rank belong to $\mathfrak E_{<\infty}$, and that those of them that belong to $\mathfrak E_0$ are precisely the ones with…
For a locally compact abelian group $G$ a simple proof is given for the known fact that a bounded domain $Ω$ tiles $G$ with translations by a lattice $Λ$ if and only if the set of characters of $G$ indexed by the dual lattice of $Λ$ is an orthogonal basis of $L^2(Ω).$ The proof uses simple techniques from Harmonic Analysis.
We study the group $IAut(A)$ generated by the inertial automorphisms of an abelian group $A$, that is, automorphisms $γ$ with the property that each subgroup $H$ of $A$ has finite index in the subgroup generated by $H$ and $Hγ$. Clearly, $IAut(A)$ contains the group $FAut(A)$ of finitary automorphisms of $A$, which is known to be locally finite. In a previous paper, we showed that $IAut(A)$ is (locally finite)-by-abelian. In this paper, we show that $IAut(A)$ is also metabelian-by-(locally finite). In particular, $IAut(A)$ has a normal subgroup $Γ$ such that $IAut(A)/Γ$ is locally finite and $…
Starting out from results known for the most classical cases of N, Z^d, R^d or for sigma-finite abelian groups, here we define the notion of asymptotic uniform upper density in general locally compact abelian groups. Even if a bit surprising, the new notion proves to be the right extension of the classical cases of Z^d, R^d. The new notion is used to extend some analogous results previously obtained only for classical cases or sigma-finite abelian groups. In particular, we show the following extension of a well-known result for Z of Furstenberg: if in a general locally compact Abelian group G …
By the Heyde theorem, the Gaussian distribution on the real line is characterized by the symmetry of the conditional distribution of one linear form of of $n$ independent random variables given another. When $n=2$ we prove analogues of this theorem in the case when independent random variables take values in a locally compact Abelian group $X$ and coefficients of the linear forms are topological automorphisms of $X$.
Sacerdote [Sa] has shown that the non-Abelian free groups satisfy precisely the same universal-existential sentences Th(F$_2$)$\cap \forall \exists $ in a first-order language L$_o$ appropriate for group theory. It is shown that in every model of Th(F$_2$)$\cap \forall \exists $ the maximal Abelian subgroups are elementarily equivalent to locally cyclic groups (necessarily nontrivial and torsion free). Two classes of groups are interpolated between the non-Abelian locally free groups and Remeslennikov's $\exists $-free groups. These classes are the \textbf{almost locally free groups} and the \…
We show that the homological finiteness length of a non-uniform lattice on a locally finite CAT(0) n-dimensional polyhedral complex is less than n. As a corollary, we obtain an upper bound for the homological finiteness length of arithmetic groups over function fields. This gives an easier proof of a result of Bux and Wortman that solved a long-standing conjecture.
We prove that every group ring of a non-abelian locally free group which is the union of an ascending sequence of free groups is primitive. In particular, every group ring of a countable non-abelian locally free group is primitive. In addition, by making use of the result, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for group rings of ascending HNN extensions of free groups to be primitive, which extends the known result for the countable case to the general cardinality case. In order to prove the main theorem, we state some graph-theoretic results and apply them to to Formanek's method.
It has been claimed by Halmos in [Comment on the real line, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc., 50 (1944), 877-878] that if G is a Hausdorff locally compact topological abelian group and if the character group of G is torsion free then G is divisible. We prove that such claim is false, by presenting a family of counterexamples. While other counterexamples are known (see [D. L. Armacost, The structure of locally compact abelian groups, 1981]), we also present a family of stronger counterexamples, showing that even if one assumes that the character group of G is both torsion free and divisible, it does not …
Consider the abelian category $\mathcal{C}_k$ of commutative group schemes of finite type over a field $k$. By results of Serre and Oort, $\mathcal{C}_k$ has homological dimension $1$ (resp. $2$) if $k$ is algebraically closed of characteristic $0$ (resp. positive). In this article, we explore the abelian category of commutative algebraic groups up to isogeny, defined as the quotient of $\mathcal{C}_k$ by the full subcategory $\mathcal{F}_k$ of finite $k$-group schemes. We show that $\mathcal{C}_k/\mathcal{F}_k$ has homological dimension $1$, and we determine its projective or injective object…
