The plus construction with respect to subrings of the rationals

Abstract

We construct explicit models of universal $H \mathbb{Z}[J^{-1}]$-acyclic spaces $\mathcal M$, for any subset $J$ of the prime numbers. The corresponding nullification functors provide thus plus construction functors for ordinary homology with $\mathbb{Z}[J^{-1}]$ coefficients. Motivated by classical results about Quillen's plus construction for integral homology, we prove that the $H \mathbb{Z}[J^{-1}]$-acyclization functor and the $\mathcal M$-cellularization functor coincide. We show that the acyclization-plus construction fiber sequence is always a cofiber sequence for simply connected spaces, but almost never so when the plus construction is not simply connected, unlike in the classical case.