This is part of a series of posts intended to understand some of the basic structure of the category of unstable modules over the (mod
) Steenrod algebra, to prepare for the proof of the Sullivan conjecture. Here’s what we’ve seen so far:
is a Grothendieck abelian category, with a set of compact, projective generators
(the free unstable module on a generator in degree
). (See this post.)
has a tautological class
in degree
, and has a basis given by
for
an admissible sequence of excess
. (This post explained the terminology and the proof.)
was the subspace
.
Our goal in this post is to describe some of the additional structure on the category , which will eventually enable us to prove (and make sense of!) results such as
. We’ll start with the symmetric monoidal tensor product and the suspension functor, and then connect this to the Frobenius maps (which will be defined below).
1. The symmetric monoidal structure
Our first order of business is to describe the symmetric monoidal structure on , which will be given by the
-linear tensor product. In fact, recall that the Steenrod algebra is a cocommutative Hopf algebra, under the diagonal map
The Hopf algebra structure is defined according to the following rule: we have that maps to
if and only if for every two cohomology classes
in the cohomology of a topological space, one has
The cocommutative Hopf algebra structure on gives a tensor product on the category of (graded)
-modules, which is symmetric monoidal. It’s easy to check that if
are
-modules satisfying the unstability condition, then so does
. This is precisely the symmetric monoidal structure on
.
Example 4 Given an unstable -module
, we can define the suspension
with
and with the same -module structure. A short check shows that
is also unstable, so we get an endofunctor
which is fully faithful. Another way to describe the suspension functor is that it is the tensor product with the object (which is
in degree one and zero everywhere else). Below, we’ll describe the left adjoint to
and its derived functors in terms of the Frobenius.
2. The Frobenius
The category also comes with another endofunctor
which we can think of as a Frobenius (or Verschiebung) of sorts. Namely, given a module , we define
and the -module structure on
is such that the action of
on
corresponds to the action of
for
even and zero if
is odd.
In other words, we use an algebra homomorphism
such that
and pull back the -module structure along
, but modifying the grading appropriately since
halves the grading.
In order for this to make any sense, we need to check that the map we’ve defined is in fact a homomorphism. One way to do this is to check that
respects the Adem relations. A more conceptual way is to consider the dual Steenrod algebra (discussed in this post)
which is a commutative Hopf algebra, and consider the Frobenius
which is a map of Hopf algebras. Unwinding the pairing between and
, the dual map can be checked to be
. More explicitly, we need to check that for any
and any
, we have
But can be identified with the pairing
using the duality between multiplication and comultiplication. Now here it’s easy to see that everything cancels except for . This exhibits
as the dual to the Frobenius map and is therefore a homomorphism (of Hopf algebras). Finally, a short check shows that
still satisfies the unstability condition, and that
commutes with the symmetric monoidal structure.
This proves:
Proposition 33
as defined above is a symmetric monoidal endofunctor
.
3. The Frobenius map
The next goal of this post is to connect the construction with the suspension functor defined two sections ago. In order to do this, we’ll need to define a Frobenius map, which will be a natural transformation:
The map sends an element in degree
of
, identified with
, to
. By the unstability condition,
is the top square that can’t vanish. We need to check that this is actually a map in
:
Proposition 34 The map
defined is
-linear.
Proof: This is a manipulation with the Adem relations. Namely, we need to show that if and
, then
When , there is nothing to prove: both sides are zero by unstability. When
, both sides are obviously equal. When
, we can use the Adem relations to get
When applied to a class in degree , the instability condition forces everything on the right-hand-side to vanish except when
is even and
, in which case we get the desired result.
It’s also straightforward (from the Cartan formula) that the map of functors is symmetric monoidal. One reason that
is relevant is that
measures the failure of a module to be a suspension. Observe that if
is a suspension of an object in
, then
vanishes on all classes of degree
, and the map
is zero. Conversely, if the map is zero, we can desuspend
and the result will still satisfy the unstability condition.
We get:
Proposition 35 The object
is a suspension if and only if
is zero.
In the next section, we’ll elaborate on the relationship between and the suspension.
4. The loop space and its derived functors
Earlier in this post, we defined a suspension functor
This functor is exact and commutes with limits, and it is also fully faithful. It isn’t invertible because the desuspension of an unstable -module doesn’t have to be unstable. The adjoint functor theorem implies that it has a left adjoint
(observe that we have dualized and are working in cohomology rather than homology). In this section, we’ll try to understand a little about
and its derived functors.
Let’s start by observing that the loop space of a suspension is easy to describe: we have
which is a formal consequence of the fact that is fully faithful. As another example, we have
by appealing to universal properties of both and the free objects. Moreover,
(as a left adjoint) is right exact. In general, however, it is not left exact.
Let’s now describe in general. If
is any module, we need to define
such that
This shows that we can describe as the largest quotient of
which satisfies the unstability condition. This has a direct connection with
above. The map
has a cokernel, which is precisely the quotient of by
, and that desuspends in
. In fact, that’s exactly the largest quotient that does desuspend, and we find:
Proposition 36 We can describe
as the desuspension (which exists in
) of the cokernel of the Frobenius map
.
It follows that for any , we have an exact sequence
We would like to prove:
Proposition 37 The desuspension of the kernel of
is the first derived functor of
. All the higher derived functors of
vanish.
Stated another way, the derived functor of , in the derived category, is a desuspension of the map
(considered as a two-term chain complex). In order to prove this, it suffices by abstract nonsense to show effaceability of the candidate derived functors: i.e., we must show that
is injective if
is projective. It suffices thus to prove:
Proposition 38 For each
, we have an exact sequence
in other words the Frobenius
is injective.
Proof: This is a straightforward consequence of the basis provided for .
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