A connected space is called a C0-space if its rational cup product is trivial. A characterizing property of C0-spaces is obtained. This property is used to calculate the algebraic K0-group K0(C𝔽(X)) of the ring of continuous functions for infinite-dimensional complexes X.

The problem of computing the integral cohomology ring of the symmetric square of a topological space has long been of interest, but limited progress has been made on the general case until recently. We offer a solution for the complex and quaternionic projective spaces $\mathbb{K}$Pn, by utilising their rich geometrical structure. Our description involves generators and relations, and our methods entail ideas from the literature of quantum chemistry, theoretical physics, and combinatorics. We begin with the case $\mathbb{K}$P∞, and then identify the truncation required for passage to finite n. The calculations rely upon a ladder of long exact cohomology sequences, which compares cofibrations associated to the diagonals of the symmetric square and the corresponding Borel construction. These incorporate the one-point compactifications of classic configuration spaces of unordered pairs of points in $\mathbb{K}$Pn, which are identified as Thom spaces by combining Löwdin's symmetric orthogonalisation (and its quaternionic analogue) with a dash of Pin geometry. The relations in the ensuing cohomology rings are conveniently expressed using generalised Fibonacci polynomials. Our conclusions are compatible with those of Gugnin mod torsion and Nakaoka mod 2, and with homological results of Milgram.

We determine the possible $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$-cohomology rings of orbit spaces of free actions of $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ (or fixed point free involutions) on the Dold manifold $P(1,n)$, where $n$ is an odd natural number.

Let $G$ be a group hyperbolic relative to a finite collection of subgroups ${\mathcal{P}}$. Let ${\mathcal{F}}$ be the family of subgroups consisting of all the conjugates of subgroups in ${\mathcal{P}}$, all their subgroups, and all finite subgroups. Then there is a cocompact model for $E_{{\mathcal{F}}}G$. This result was known in the torsion-free case. In the presence of torsion, a new approach was necessary. Our method is to exploit the notion of dismantlability. A number of sample applications are discussed.

We prove that the $p$-completed Brown–Peterson spectrum is a retract of a product of Morava $E$-theory spectra. As a consequence, we generalize results of Kashiwabara and of Ravenel, Wilson and Yagita from spaces to spectra and deduce that the notion of a good group is determined by Brown–Peterson cohomology. Furthermore, we show that rational factorizations of the Morava $E$-theory of certain finite groups hold integrally up to bounded torsion with height-independent exponent, thereby lifting these factorizations to the rationalized Brown–Peterson cohomology of such groups.

We study tautological rings for high-dimensional manifolds, that is, for each smooth manifold $M$ the ring $R^{\ast }(M)$ of those characteristic classes of smooth fibre bundles with fibre $M$ which is generated by generalised Miller–Morita–Mumford classes. We completely describe these rings modulo nilpotent elements, when $M$ is a connected sum of copies of $S^{n}\times S^{n}$ for $n$ odd.

We prove that the tautological ring of ${\mathcal{M}}_{2,n}^{\mathsf{ct}}$, the moduli space of $n$-pointed genus two curves of compact type, does not have Poincaré duality for any $n\geqslant 8$. This result is obtained via a more general study of the cohomology groups of ${\mathcal{M}}_{2,n}^{\mathsf{ct}}$. We explain how the cohomology can be decomposed into pieces corresponding to different local systems and how the tautological cohomology can be identified within this decomposition. Our results allow the computation of $H^{k}({\mathcal{M}}_{2,n}^{\mathsf{ct}})$ for any $k$ and $n$ considered both as $\mathbb{S}_{n}$-representation and as mixed Hodge structure/$\ell$-adic Galois representation considered up to semi-simplification. A consequence of our results is also that all even cohomology of $\overline{{\mathcal{M}}}_{2,n}$ is tautological for $n<20$, and that the tautological ring of $\overline{{\mathcal{M}}}_{2,n}$ fails to have Poincaré duality for all $n\geqslant 20$. This improves and simplifies results of the author and Orsola Tommasi.

Let E → B be a fibre bundle and let Eʹ → B be a vector bundle. Let G be a compact Lie group acting fibre preservingly and freely on both E and Eʹ – 0, where 0 is the zero section of Eʹ → B. Let f : E → Eʹ be a fibre-preserving G-equivariant map and let Zf = {x ∈ E | f(x) = 0} be the zero set of f. In this paper we give a lower bound for the cohomological dimension of the zero set Zf when a fibre of E → B is a real Stiefel manifold with a free ℤ/2-action or a complex Stiefel manifold with a free 𝕊1-action. This generalizes a well-known result of Dold for sphere bundles equipped with free involutions.

The Hilbert scheme $X^{[a]}$ of points on a complex manifold $X$ is a compactification of the configuration space of $a$ -element subsets of $X$ . The integral cohomology of $X^{[a]}$ is more subtle than the rational cohomology. In this paper, we compute the mod 2 cohomology of $X^{[2]}$ for any complex manifold $X$ , and the integral cohomology of $X^{[2]}$ when $X$ has torsion-free cohomology.

We show that the Gromov-Lawson-Rosenberg conjecture for the Semi-Dihedral group of order 16 is true.

Apart from simply connected spaces, a non-simply connected co-H-space is a typical example of a space X with a coaction of Bπ1 (X) along rX: X → Bπ1 (X), the classifying map of the universal covering. If such a space X is actually a co-H-space, then the fibrewise p-localization of rX (or the ‘almost’ p-localization of X) is a fibrewise co-H-space (or an ‘almost’ co-H-space, respectively) for every prime p. In this paper, we show that the converse statement is true, i.e. for a non-simply connected space X with a coaction of Bπ1 (X) along rX, X is a co-H-space if, for every prime p, the almost p-localization of X is an almost co-H-space.

Let A be a unital C*-algebra with the canonical (H) C*-bundle over the maximal ideal space of the centre of A, and let E(A) be the set of all elementary operators on A. We consider derivations on A which lie in the completely bounded norm closure of E(A), and show that such derivations are necessarily inner in the case when each fibre of is a prime C*-algebra. We also consider separable C*-algebras A for which is an (F) bundle. For these C*-algebras we show that the following conditions are equivalent: E(A) is closed in the operator norm; A as a Banach module over its centre is topologically finitely generated; fibres of have uniformly finite dimensions, and each restriction bundle of over a set where its fibres are of constant dimension is of finite type as a vector bundle.

Is the cohomology of the classifying space of a p-compact group, with Noetherian twisted coefficients, a Noetherian module? In this paper we provide, over the ring of p-adic integers, such a generalization to p-compact groups of the Evens–Venkov Theorem. We consider the cohomology of a space with coefficients in a module, and we compare Noetherianity over the field with p elements with Noetherianity over the p-adic integers, in the case when the fundamental group is a finite p-group.

We develop a theory of 2-fusion systems of even characteristic, and use that theory to show that all S3-free saturated 2-fusion systems are constrained. This supplies a new proof of Glauberman's Theorem on S4-free groups and its various corollaries.

We study bounds on nilpotence in H*(BG), the mod p cohomology of the classifying space of a compact Lie group G. Part of this is a report of our previous work on this problem, updated to reflect the consequences of Peter Symonds's recent verification of Dave Benson's Regularity Conjecture. New results are given for finite p-groups, leading to good bounds on nilpotence in H*(BP) determined by the subgroup structure of the p-group P.

We study the space of commuting elements in the central product Gm,p of m copies of the special unitary group SU(p), where p is a prime number. In particular, a computation for the number of path-connected components of these spaces is given and the geometry of the moduli space Rep(ℤn, Gm,p) of isomorphism classes of flat connections on principal Gm,p-bundles over the n-torus is completely described for all values of n, m and p.

We consider classifying spaces of a family of p-groups and prove that mod p cohomology enriched with Bockstein spectral sequences determines their homotopy type among p-completed CW-complexes.

A topological approach to the theory of equilibrium phase transitions in statistical physics is based on the topological hypothesis, which claims that phase transitions are due to changes of the topology of suitable submanifolds in the configuration space. In this paper we examine in detail the antiferromagnetic mean-field XY model and study the topology of the subenergy manifolds. The latter can be interpreted mechanically as the configuration space of a linkage with one telescopic leg. We use methods of Morse theory to describe explicitly the Betti numbers of this configuration space. We apply these results to the antiferromagnetic mean-field XY model and compute the exponential growth rate of the total Betti number. Previous authors studied the Euler characteristic rather than the total Betti number. We show that in the presence of an external magnetic field the model undergoes a single ‘total Betti number phase transition’.

We give a classifying theory for LG-bundles, where LG is the loop group of a compact Lie group G, and present a calculation for the string class of the universal LG-bundle. We show that this class is in fact an equivariant cohomology class and give an equivariant differential form representing it. We then use the caloron correspondence to define (higher) characteristic classes for LG-bundles and to prove a result for characteristic classes for based loop groups for the free loop group. These classes have a natural interpretation in equivariant cohomology and we give equivariant differential form representatives for the universal case in all odd dimensions.

The actions, anomalies and quantization conditions allow the M2-brane and the M5-brane to support, in a natural way, structures beyond spin on their world-volumes. The main examples are twisted string structures. This also extends to twisted stringc structures which we introduce and relate to twisted string structures. The relation of the C-field to Chern–Simons theory suggests the use of the string cobordism category to describe the M2-brane.