Information About

Equivariant Cohomology




Specifically, given a group G (discrete or not), a Topological Space X and an action

:G imes X ightarrow X,

equivariant cohomology determines a Graded Ring

  • _GX,


the ''equivariant cohomology ring''. If G is the Trivial Group , this is just the ordinary Cohomology Ring of X, whereas if X is Contractible , it reduces to the group cohomology of G.


OUTLINE CONSTRUCTION


Equivariant cohomology can be constructed as the ordinary cohomology of a suitable space determined by X and G, called the ''homotopy Orbit Space ''

:X_{hG} of G

on X. (The 'h' distinguishes it from the ordinary Orbit Space X_G.)

If G is the trivial group this space X_{hG} will turn out to be just X itself, whereas if X is contractible the space will be a Classifying Space for G.


Properties of the homotopy orbit space


  • If G imes X ightarrow X is a free action then X_{hG}\sim X_G.

  • If G imes X ightarrow X is a trivial action then X_{hG}\sim X imes BG.

  • In particular (as a special case of either of the above) if G is trivial then X_{hG}\sim X.



Construction of the homotopy orbit space


The homotopy orbit space is a “homotopically correct” version of the Orbit Space (the quotient of X by its G-action) in which X is first replaced by a larger but Homotopy Equivalent space so that the action is guaranteed to be Free .

To this end, construct the Universal Bundle EG ightarrow BG for G and recall that EG has a free G-action. Then the product X imes EG—which is homotopy equivalent to X since EG is contractible—has a “diagonal” G-action defined by taking the G-action on each factor: moreover, this action is free since it is free on EG. So we define the homotopy orbit space to be the orbit space of this G-action.

This construction is denoted by X_{hG} := X imes_G EG.