arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Frank Connolly.
Our main theorem provides an $(R,K)$ chain isomorphism: $ T\Delta^*X\cong C(X_K) $. Here $T$ is the Ranicki Duality functor; $\Delta^*X$ is the simplicial cochain complex of the simplicial complex $X$, with control map $\pi:X \to K$ and $C(X_K) $ is the cellular chain complex of a CW complex $X_K$.
The problem of equivariant rigidity is the $Γ$-homeomorphism classification of $Γ$-actions on manifolds with compact quotient and with contractible fixed sets for all finite subgroups of $Γ$. In other words, this is the classification of cocompact $E_{fin}Γ$-manifolds. We use surgery theory, algebraic $K$-theory, and the Farrell--Jones Conjecture to give this classification for a family of groups which satisfy the property that the normalizers of nontrivial finite subgroups are themselves finite. More generally, we study cocompact proper actions of these groups on contractible manifolds and prove that the $E_{fin}$-condition is always satisfied.
We prove there is only one involution (up to conjugacy) on the n-torus which acts as $-\mathrm{Id}$ on the first homology group when $n$ is of the form $4k$, is of the form $4k+1$, or is less than $4$. In all other cases we prove there are infinitely many such involutions up to conjugacy, but each of them has exactly $2^n$ fixed points and is conjugate to a smooth involution. The key technical point is that we completely compute the equivariant structure set for the corresponding crystallographic group action on $\mathbb{R}^n$ in terms of the Cappell $\mathrm{UNil}$-groups arising from its infinite dihedral subgroups. We give a complete analysis of equivariant topological rigidity for this family of groups.
In this paper we construct a model for the classifying space, BVCG, of a crystallographic group G of rank n relative to the family VC of virtually-cyclic subgroups of G. The model is used to show that there exists no other model for the virtually-cyclic classifying space of G with dimension less than vcd(G)+1, where vcd(G) denotes the virtual cohomological dimension of G. In addition, the dimension of our construction realizes this limit.
The n-string braid group of a graph X is defined as the fundamental group of the n-point configuration space of the space X. This configuration space is a finite dimensional aspherical space. A. Abrams and R. Ghrist have conjectured that this braid group is a right angled Artin group if X is planar. We prove their conjecture if X is a tree whose nodes all lie in a single interval of X.
Cappell's codimension 1 splitting obstruction surgery group UNil_n(R;R,R) of a ring with involution R is a direct summand of the Wall surgery obstruction group L_n(R[D_{\infty}]) of the amalgamated free product R[D_{\infty}] = R[Z_2]*_RR[Z_2], with D_{\infty}=Z_2*Z_2 the infinite dihedral group. We use the quadratic Poincaré cobordism formulation of the L-groups to prove that L_n(R[x]) = L_n(R)\oplus UNil_n(R;R,R), with \bar{x} = x . We combine this with M. Weiss' universal chain bundle theory to produce almost complete calculations of UNil_*(Z;Z,Z) and L_*(Z[D_{\infty}]).