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 finite spaces.
We also prove a similar result for maps: We give a complete characterization of the class of maps between finite spaces which induce simple homotopy equivalences between the associated polyhedra. Furthermore, this class describes all maps coming from simple homotopy equivalences at the level of complexes.
The advantage of this theory is that the elementary move of finite spaces is much simpler than the elementary move of simplicial complexes: It consists of removing (or adding) just a single point of the space.
Let p be a fibration over a finite simplicial complex, whose fibers have the homotopy type of finite simplicial complexes. Then p is equivalent to an approximate fibration whose total space is a compact ENR. The proof uses homotopy coherent diagrams and their homotopy colimits. We also comment on the simple homotopy type of the total space and give an application to the fibering of Hilbert cube manifolds.
We prove that homotopy invariants of finite degree distinguish homotopy classes of maps of a connected compact CW-complex to a nilpotent connected CW-complex with finitely generated homotopy groups.
We describe the second homotopy group of any CW-complex $K$ by analyzing the universal cover of a locally finite model of $K$ using the notion of $G$-coloring of a partially ordered set. As applications we prove a generalization of the Hurewicz theorem, which relates the homotopy and homology of non-necessarily simply-connected complexes, and derive new results on asphericity for two-dimensional complexes and group presentations.
We show that the homotopy type of a finite oriented Poincaré 4-complex is determined by its quadratic 2-type provided its fundamental group is finite and has a dihedral Sylow 2-subgroup. By combining with results of Hambleton-Kreck and Bauer, this applies in the case of smooth oriented 4-manifolds whose fundamental group is a finite subgroup of SO(3). An important class of examples are elliptic surfaces with finite fundamental group.
Let G be a finite group. The unit sphere in a finite-dimensional orthogonal G-representation motivates the definition of homotopy representations, due to tom Dieck. We introduce an algebraic analogue, and establish its basic properties including the Borel-Smith conditions and realization by finite G-CW-complexes.
We note that a recent result of the second author yields upper bounds for odd-primary homotopy exponents of compact simple Lie groups which are often quite close to the lower bounds obtained from v_1-periodic homotopy theory.
We study the asymptotic behavior of the homotopy groups of simply connected finite $p$-local complexes, and define a space to be locally hyperbolic if its homotopy groups have exponential growth. Under some certain conditions related to the functorial decomposition of loop suspension, we prove that the suspended finite complexes are locally hyperbolic if suitable but accessible information of the homotopy groups is known. In particular, we prove that Moore spaces are locally hyperbolic, and other candidates are also given.
In this short note, we provide a calculation of the Euler characteristic of a finite homotopy colimit of finite cell complexes, which depends only on the Euler characteristics of each space and resembles Mobius inversion. Versions of the result are known when the colimit is indexed by a finite category, but the behavior is more uniform when we index by finite quasicategories instead. The formula simultaneously generalizes the additive formula for Euler characteristic of a homotopy pushout and the multiplicative formula for Euler characteristic of a fiber bundle.
Given a closed smooth manifold $M$ of even dimension $2n\ge6$ with finite fundamental group, we show that the classifying space ${\rm BDiff}(M)$ of the diffeomorphism group of $M$ is of finite type and has finitely generated homotopy groups in every degree. We also prove a variant of this result for manifolds with boundary and deduce that the space of smooth embeddings of a compact submanifold $N\subset M$ of arbitrary codimension into $M$ has finitely generated higher homotopy groups based at the inclusion, provided the fundamental group of the complement is finite. As an intermediate result,…
We give a new proof, using comparatively simple techniques, of the Sullivan conjecture: the space of pointed maps from the classifying space of the cyclic group of order $p$ to any finite-dimensional CW complex $K$ is contractible.
We develop the basic theory of Maurer-Cartan simplicial sets associated to (shifted complete) $L_\infty$ algebras equipped with the action of a finite group. Our main result asserts that the inclusion of the fixed points of this equivariant simplicial set into the homotopy fixed points is a homotopy equivalence of Kan complexes, provided the $L_\infty$ algebra is concentrated in non-negative degrees. As an application, and under certain connectivity assumptions, we provide rational algebraic models of the fixed and homotopy fixed points of mapping spaces equipped with the action of a finite gr…
We implement an algorithm RSHT (Random Simple-Homotopy) to study the simple-homotopy types of simplicial complexes, with a particular focus on contractible spaces and on finding substructures in higher-dimensional complexes. The algorithm combines elementary simplicial collapses with pure elementary expansions. For triangulated d-manifolds with d < 7, we show that RSHT reduces to (random) bistellar flips. Among the many examples on which we test RSHT, we describe an explicit 15-vertex triangulation of the Abalone, and more generally, (14k+1)-vertex triangulations of Bing's houses with k rooms,…
We extend the homotopy theories based on point reduction for finite spaces and simplicial complexes to finite acyclic categories and $Δ$-complexes, respectively. The functors of classifying spaces and face posets are compatible with these homotopy theories. In contrast with the classical settings of finite spaces and simplicial complexes, the universality of morphisms and simplices plays a central role in this paper.
Multi-sorted algebraic theories provide a formalism for describing various structures on spaces that are of interest in homotopy theory. The results of Badzioch and Bergner showed that an interesting feature of this formalism is the following rigidification property. Every multi-sorted algebraic theory defines a category of homotopy algebras, i.e. a category of spaces equipped with certain structure that is to some extent homotopy invariant. Each such homotopy algebra can be replaced by a weakly equivalent strict algebra which is a purely algebraic structure on a space. The equivalence between…
For every finite abelian group $A$ and $n\geq 3$, we construct a finitely presented group defined by explicit generators and relations, such that its center is $π_n(ΣK(A,1))$.
We show that if a graph $G$ involves a certain square grid graph as a full subgraph, then a certain operation on it yields a simplicial suspension of the independence complex of $G$. This generalizes a result of Csorba. As a corollary, we determine the simple homotopy types of the independence complexes of some grid graphs.
Finite type nilpotent spaces are weakly equivalent if and only if their singular cochains are quasi-isomorphic as E-infinity algebras. The cochain functor from the homotopy category of finite type nilpotent spaces to the homotopy category of E-infinity algebras is faithful but not full.
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.
In this paper we prove that every finite group $G$ can be realized as the group of self-homotopy equivalences of infinitely many elliptic spaces $X$. Moreover, $X$ can be chosen to be the rationalization of an inflexible compact simply connected manifold.
We show that a derivator is stable if and only if homotopy finite limits and homotopy finite colimits commute, if and only if homotopy finite limit functors have right adjoints, and if and only if homotopy finite colimit functors have left adjoints. These characterizations generalize to an abstract notion of "stability relative to a class of functors", which includes in particular pointedness, semiadditivity, and ordinary stability. To prove them, we develop the theory of derivators enriched over monoidal left derivators and weighted homotopy limits and colimits therein.
Let $I$ be a small category with finite dimensional nerve, and $X\colon I\to Cat$ a diagram of small categories. We show that, under a "Reedy quasi-fibrancy condition", the homotopy limit of the geometric realization of $X$ is itself the geometric realization of a category. This categorical model for the homotopy limit is defined explicitly, as a category of natural transformations of diagrams. For the poset $\bullet\to\bullet\leftarrow\bullet$ we recover the model for homotopy pullbacks provided by Quillen's Theorem $B$ (specifically Barwick and Kan's version of Quillen's Theorem $B_2$). For …
We first show that simply connected co-$H$-spaces and connected $H$-spaces can be uniquely decomposed into prime factors in the homotopy category of pointed $p$-local spaces of finite type, which is used to develop a $p$-local version of Gray's correspondence between homotopy types of prime co-$H$-spaces and homotopy types of prime $H$-spaces, and the split fibration which connects them as well. Further, we use the unique decomposition theorem to study the homotopy rigidity problem for classic functors. Among others, we prove that $ΣΩ$ and $Ω$ are homotopy rigid on simply connected $p$-local c…
In this paper we describe explicit $L_\infty$ algebras modeling the rational homotopy type of any component of the spaces $\map(X,Y)$ and $\map^*(X,Y)$ of free and pointed maps between the finite nilpotent CW-complex $X$ and the finite type nilpotent CW-complex $Y$. When $X$ is of finite type, non necessarily finite, we also show that the algebraic covers of these $L_\infty$ algebras model the universal covers of the corresponding mapping spaces.
The aim of this paper is to give a (discrete) Morse theoretic proof of the fact that the $k$-th skeleton of the flag complex $\mathcal{F}$, associated to the lattice of subspaces of a finite dimensional vector space, is homotopy equivalent to a wedge of spheres of dimension $\min\{k,\dim(\mathcal{F})\}$. The tight control provided by Morse theoretic methods allows us to give an explicit formula for the number of spheres appearing in each of these wedge summands.
We study the homotopy properties of the posets of p-subgroups Sp(G) and Ap(G) of a finite group G, viewed as finite topological spaces. We answer a question raised by R.E. Stong in 1984 about the relationship between the contractibility of the finite space Ap(G) and that of Sp(G) negatively, and describe the contractibility of Ap(G) in terms of algebraic properties of the group G.
In this paper we recover Bousfield's computation of $ν_1$-periodic homotopy groups of simply connected, finite $H$-spaces from \cite{Bou99} using the techniques of Goodwillie calculus. This is done through first computing André-Quillen cohomology over the monad $\mathbb{T}$ that encodes the power operations of complex $K$-theory. Then lifting this computation to computing $K$-theory of topological André-Quillen cohomology, and then using results of Behrens and Rezk relating it back to the Bousfield-Kuhn functor. The fact that we recovers the result of Bousfield allows us to conclude $ν_1$-peri…
We define homotopy group actions in terms of families of $A_\infty$ algebras indexed by a manifold M. We give explicit formulae for the $A_\infty$ morphism induced by a path on the manifold and for the $A_\infty$ homotopy corresponding to a pair of homotopic paths. Finally, we compute examples for finite groups and finitely generated free nonabelian groups and determine that every homotopy group action by a finite group is homotopic to a strict group action.
The semigroup of the homotopy classes of the self-homotopy maps of a finite complex which induce the trivial homomorphism on homotopy groups is nilpotent. We determine the nilpotency of these semigroups of compact Lie groups and finite Hopf spaces of rank 2. We also study the nilpotency of semigroups for Lie groups of higher rank. Especially, we give Lie groups with the nilpotency of the semigroups arbitrarily large.
We study connected mod p finite A_p-spaces admitting AC_n-space structures with n<p for an odd prime p. Our result shows that if n is greator than (p-1)/2, then the mod p Steenrod algebra acts on the mod p cohomology of such a space in a systematic way. Moreover, we consider A_p-spaces which are mod p homotopy equivalent to product spaces of odd dimensional spheres. Then we determine the largest integer n for which such a space admits an AC_n-space structure compatible with the A_p-space structure.
The classifying space BG of a topological group $G$ can be filtered by a sequence of subspaces $B(q,G)$, using the descending central series of free groups. If $G$ is finite, describing them as homotopy colimits is convenient when applying homotopy theoretic methods. In this paper we introduce natural subspaces $B(q,G)_p$ of $B(q,G)$ defined for a fixed prime $p$. We show that $B(q,G)$ is stably homotopy equivalent to a wedge of $B(q,G)_p$ as $p$ runs over the primes dividing the order of $G$. Colimits of abelian groups play an important role in understanding the homotopy type of these spaces.…
This paper proves that the functor $C(*)$ that sends pointed, simply-connected CW-complexes to their chain-complexes equipped with diagonals and iterated higher diagonals, determines their integral homotopy type --- even inducing an equivalence of categories between the category of CW-complexes up to homotopy equivalence and a certain category of chain-complexes equipped with higher diagonals. Consequently, $C(*)$ is an algebraic model for integral homotopy types similar to Quillen's model of rational homotopy types. For finite CW complexes, our model is finitely generated. Our result implies …
By studying the group of self homotopy equivalences of the localization (at a prime $p$ and/or zero) of some aspherical complexes, we show that, contrary to the case when the considered space is a nilpotent complex, $\mathcal{E}_{\#}^m (X_{p})$ is in general different from $\mathcal{E}_{\#}^m (X)_{p}$. That is the case even when $X=K(G,1)$ is a finite complex and/or $G$ satisfies extra finiteness or nilpotency conditions, for instance, when $G$ is finite or virtually nilpotent.
In a previous article, we introduced notions of finiteness obstruction, Euler characteristic, and L^2-Euler characteristic for wide classes of categories. In this sequel, we prove the compatibility of those notions with homotopy colimits of I-indexed categories where I is any small category admitting a finite I-CW-model for its I-classifying space. Special cases of our Homotopy Colimit Formula include formulas for products, homotopy pushouts, homotopy orbits, and transport groupoids. We also apply our formulas to Haefliger complexes of groups, which extend Bass--Serre graphs of groups to highe…
We give a streamlined proof of ${\mathbb A}^1$-representability for $G$-torsors under "isotropic" reductive groups, extending previous results in this sequence of papers to finite fields. We then analyze a collection of group homomorphisms that yield fiber sequences in ${\mathbb A}^1$-homotopy theory, and identify the final examples of motivic spheres that arise as homogeneous spaces for reductive groups.
Let $G$ be a compact connected Lie group, or more generally a path connected topological group of the homotopy type of a finite CW-complex, and let $X$ be a rational nilpotent $G$-space. In this paper we analyze the homotopy type of the homotopy fixed point set $X^{hG}$, and the natural injection $k\colon X^G\hookrightarrow X^{hG}$. We show that if $X$ is elliptic, that is, it has finite dimensional rational homotopy and cohomology, then each path component of $X^{hG}$ is also elliptic. We also give an explicit algebraic model of the inclusion $k$ based on which we can prove, for instance, tha…
In this master thesis, we extend results from classical simple homotopy theory to the world of stratified homotopy theory. To obtain a well-established framework to work in, we prove a series of results on two model categories of simplicial sets and topological spaces, both equipped with a notion of filtration, introduced by Sylvain Douteau in his PHD thesis. In particular, we show that there is a fully faithful embedding of homotopy categories from the (finite) filtered simplicial into the filtered topological setting. We also use these results to characterize the morphisms in the topological…
In this paper we show that most rank two groups act freely on a finite homotopy product of two spheres. This makes new progress on a conjecture by Benson and Carlson which states that a finite group G acts freely on a finite complex with the homotopy type of n spheres if the rank of G is less than or equal to n. Recalling that Qd(p) is the semidirect product of a rank two elementary abelian p-group with SL(2,p), we show that a rank two finite group acts freely on a finite CW-complex homotopic to the product of two spheres if, it does not contain any subquotient isomorphic to Qd(p) for any odd …
Baez asks whether the Euler characteristic (defined for spaces with finite homology) can be reconciled with the homotopy cardinality (defined for spaces with finite homotopy). We consider the smallest infinity category $\text{Top}^\text{rx}$ containing both these classes of spaces and closed under homotopy pushout squares. In our main result, we compute the K-theory $K_0(\text{Top}^\text{rx})$, which is freely generated by equivalence classes of connected p-finite spaces, as p ranges over all primes. This provides a negative answer to Baez's question globally, but a positive answer when we res…
