English

Equivariant dimensions of groups with operators

Algebraic Topology 2020-04-24 v3 Group Theory

Abstract

Let π\pi be a group equipped with an action of a second group GG by automorphisms. We define the equivariant cohomological dimension cdG(π){\sf cd}_G(\pi), the equivariant geometric dimension gdG(π){\sf gd}_G(\pi), and the equivariant Lusternik-Schnirelmann category catG(π){\sf cat}_G(\pi) in terms of the Bredon dimensions and classifying space of the family of subgroups of the semi-direct product πG\pi\rtimes G consisting of sub-conjugates of GG. When GG is finite, we extend theorems of Eilenberg-Ganea and Stallings-Swan to the equivariant setting, thereby showing that all three invariants coincide (except for the possibility of a GG-group π\pi with catG(π)=cdG(π)=2{\sf cat}_G(\pi)={\sf cd}_G(\pi)=2 and gdG(π)=3{\sf gd}_G(\pi)=3). A main ingredient is the purely algebraic result that the cohomological dimension of any finite group with respect to any family of proper subgroups is greater than one. This implies a Stallings-Swan type result for families of subgroups which do not contain all finite subgroups.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1912.01692,
  title  = {Equivariant dimensions of groups with operators},
  author = {Mark Grant and Ehud Meir and Irakli Patchkoria},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.01692},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

v3: 23 pages. Added Remark 2.7 and strengthened Example 4.3

R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:34:58.027Z