Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Oscar Randal-Williams

Publications and source records attributed to Oscar Randal-Williams.

71 records · Page 4Linked to original sources
arXiv2015

Stable cohomology of the universal Picard varieties and the extended mapping class group

We study the moduli spaces which classify smooth surfaces along with a complex line bundle. There are homological stability and Madsen--Weiss type results for these spaces (mostly due to Cohen and Madsen), and we discuss the cohomological calculations which may be deduced from them. We then relate these spaces to (a generalisation of) Kawazumi's extended mapping class groups, and hence deduce cohomological information about these. Finally, we relate these results to complex algebraic geometry. We construct a holomorphic stack classifying families of Riemann surfaces equipped with a fibrewise holomorphic line bundle, which is a gerbe over the universal Picard variety, and compute its holomorphic Picard group.

math.AT↗
arXiv2015

Generalised Miller-Morita-Mumford classes for block bundles and topological bundles

The most basic characteristic classes of smooth fibre bundles are the generalised Miller-Morita-Mumford classes, obtained by fibre integrating characteristic classes of the vertical tangent bundle. In this note we show that they may be defined for more general families of manifolds than smooth fibre bundles: smooth block bundles and topological fibre bundles.

math.AT↗
arXiv2014

Resolutions of moduli spaces and homological stability

We describe partial semi-simplicial resolutions of moduli spaces of surfaces with tangential structure. This allows us to prove a homological stability theorem for these moduli spaces, which often improves the known stability ranges and give explicit stability ranges in many new cases. In each of these cases the stable homology can be identified using the methods of Galatius, Madsen, Tillmann and Weiss.

math.AT↗
arXiv2014

Torelli spaces of high-dimensional manifolds

The Torelli group of a manifold is the group of all diffeomorphisms which act as the identity on the homology of the manifold. In this paper, we calculate the invariant part (invariant under the action of the automorphisms of the homology) of the cohomology of the classifying space of the Torelli group of certain high-dimensional, highly connected manifolds, with rational coefficients and in a certain range of degrees. This is based on Galatius--Randal-Williams' work on the diffeomorphism groups of these manifolds, Borel's classical results on arithmetic groups, and methods from surgery theory and pseudoisotopy theory. As a corollary, we find that all Miller--Morita--Mumford characteristic classes are nontrivial in the cohomology of the classifying space of the Torelli group, except for those associated with the Hirzebruch class, whose vanishing is forced by the family index theorem.

math.AT↗
arXiv2013

Homology of the moduli spaces and mapping class groups of framed, r-Spin and Pin surfaces

We give definitions of moduli spaces of framed, r-Spin and Pin surfaces. We apply earlier work of the author to show that each of these moduli spaces exhibits homological stability, and we identify the stable integral homology with that of certain infinite loop spaces in each case. We further show that these moduli spaces each have path components which are Eilenberg--MacLane spaces for the framed, r-Spin and Pin mapping class groups respectively, and hence we also identify the stable group homology of these groups. In particular: the stable framed mapping class group has trivial rational homology, and its abelianisation is Z/24; the rational homology of the stable Pin mapping class groups coincides with that of the non-orientable mapping class group, and their abelianisations are Z/2 for Pin^+ and (Z/2)^3 for Pin^-.

math.GT↗
arXiv2013

Detecting and realising characteristic classes of manifold bundles

We apply our earlier work on the higher-dimensional analogue of the Mumford conjecture to two questions. Inspired by work of Ebert we prove non-triviality of certain characteristic classes of bundles of smooth closed manifolds. Inspired by work of Church-Farb-Thibault and Church-Crossley-Giansiracusa we investigate the dependence of characteristic classes of bundles on characteristic numbers of its fibre, total space and base space.

math.AT↗
arXiv2012

Stable moduli spaces of high dimensional manifolds

We prove an analogue of the Madsen-Weiss theorem for high dimensional manifolds. For example, we explicitly describe the ring of characteristic classes of smooth fibre bundles whose fibres are connected sums of g copies of S^n x S^n, in the limit as g tends to infinity. Rationally it is a polynomial ring in certain explicit generators, giving a high dimensional analogue of Mumford's conjecture. More generally, we study a moduli space N(P) of those null-bordisms of a fixed (2n-1)-dimensional manifold P which are highly connected relative to P. We determine the homology of N(P) after stabilisation using certain self-bordisms of P. The stable homology is identified with that of a certain infinite loop space.

math.AT↗
arXiv2012

Homological stability for moduli spaces of high dimensional manifolds

We prove a homological stability theorem for the moduli spaces of manifolds diffeomorphic to g(S^n x S^n), provided n > 2. This generalises Harer's stability theorem for the homology of mapping class groups. Combined with previous work of the authors, it gives a calculation of the homology of these moduli spaces in a range of degrees.

math.AT↗
arXiv2012

The space of immersed surfaces in a manifold

We study the cohomology of the space of immersed genus g surfaces in a simply-connected manifold. We compute the rational cohomology of this space in a stable range which goes to infinity with g. In fact, in this stable range we are also able to obtain information about torsion in the cohomology of this space, as long as we localise away from (g-1).

math.AT↗
arXiv2011

Homological stability for unordered configuration spaces

This paper consists of two related parts. In the first part we give a self-contained proof of homological stability for the spaces C_n(M;X) of configurations of n unordered points in a connected open manifold M with labels in a path-connected space X, with the best possible integral stability range of 2* \leq n. Along the way we give a new proof of the high connectivity of the complex of injective words. If the manifold has dimension at least three, we show that in rational homology the stability range may be improved to * \leq n. In the second part we study to what extent the homology of the spaces C_n(M) can be considered stable when M is a closed manifold. In this case there are no stabilisation maps, but one may still ask if the dimensions of the homology groups over some field stabilise with n. We prove that this is true when M is odd-dimensional, or when the field is F_2 or Q. It is known to be false in the remaining cases.

math.AT↗
arXiv2011

The Picard group of the moduli space of r-Spin Riemann surfaces

We have recently proved a homological stability theorem for moduli spaces of r-Spin Riemann surfaces, which in particular implies a Madsen--Weiss theorem for these moduli spaces. This allows us to effectively study their stable cohomology, and to compute their stable rational cohomology and their integral Picard groups. Using these methods we give a complete description of their integral Picard groups for genus at least 9 in terms of geometrically defined generators, and determine the relations between them.

math.AT↗
arXiv2010

The stable cohomology of automorphisms of free groups with coefficients in the homology representation

We study the cohomology of Aut(F_n) and Out(F_n) with coefficients in the modules \wedge^q H, \wedge H^*, Sym^q H or Sym^q H^*, where H is the Out(F_n)-module obtained by abelianising the free group F_n. For reasons which are not conceptually clear, taking coefficients in H and its related modules behaves in a far less trivial way than taking coefficients in H^* and its related modules. Based on a conjectural homology stability theorem for spaces of graphs labeled by a simply connected background space, we give a stable integral calculation of these groups in low degrees, and modulo a further conjecture a stable rational calculation in all degrees.

math.AT↗
arXiv2009

Embedded Cobordism Categories and Spaces of Manifolds

Galatius, Madsen, Tillmann and Weiss have identified the homotopy type of the classifying space of the cobordism category with objects (d-1)-dimensional manifolds embedded in R^\infty. In this paper we apply the techniques of spaces of manifolds, as developed by the author and Galatius, to identify the homotopy type of the cobordism category with objects (d-1)-dimensional submanifolds of a fixed background manifold M. There is a description in terms of a space of sections of a bundle over M associated to its tangent bundle. This can be interpreted as a form of Poincare duality, relating a space of submanifolds of M to a space of functions on M.

math.AT↗
arXiv2009

Monoids of moduli spaces of manifolds

We study categories of d-dimensional cobordisms from the perspective of Tillmann and Galatius-Madsen-Tillmann-Weiss. There is a category $C_θ$ of closed smooth (d-1)-manifolds and smooth d-dimensional cobordisms, equipped with generalised orientations specified by a fibration $θ: X \to BO(d)$. The main result of GMTW is a determination of the homotopy type of the classifying space $BC_θ$. The goal of the present paper is a systematic investigation of subcategories $D$ of $C_θ$ having classifying space homotopy equivalent to that of $C_θ$, the smaller such $D$ the better. We prove that in most cases of interest, $D$ can be chosen to be a homotopy commutative monoid. As a consequence we prove that the stable cohomology of many moduli spaces of surfaces with $θ$-structure is the cohomology of the infinite loop space of a certain Thom spectrum. This was known for certain special $θ$, using homological stability results; our work is independent of such results and covers many more cases.

math.AT↗
arXiv2008

The homology of the stable non-orientable mapping class group

Combining results of Wahl, Galatius--Madsen--Tillmann--Weiss and Korkmaz one can identify the homotopy-type of the classifying space of the stable non-orientable mapping class group $N_\infty$ (after plus-construction). At odd primes p, the F_p-homology coincides with that of $Q_0(HP^\infty_+)$, but at the prime 2 the result is less clear. We identify the F_2-homology as a Hopf algebra in terms of the homology of well-known spaces. As an application we tabulate the integral stable homology of $N_\infty$ in degrees up to six. As in the oriented case, not all of these cohomology classes have a geometric interpretation. We determine a polynomial subalgebra of $H^*(N_\infty ; F_2)$ consisting of geometrically-defined characteristic classes.

math.AT↗