Novikov-Shubin invariants for arbitrary group actions and their positivity

We extend the notion of Novikov-Shubin invariant for free G-CW-complexes of finite type to spaces with arbitrary G-actions and prove some statements about their positivity. In particular we apply this to classifying spaces of discrete groups.Comment: 18 pages, metadata change

Coefficients for the Farrell-Jones Conjecture

We introduce the Farrell-Jones Conjecture with coefficients in an additive category with G-action. This is a variant of the Farrell-Jones Conjecture about the algebraic K- or L-Theory of a group ring RG. It allows to treat twisted group rings and crossed product rings. The conjecture with coefficients is stronger than the original conjecture but it has better inheritance properties. Since known proofs using controlled algebra carry over to the set-up with coefficients we obtain new results about the original Farrell-Jones Conjecture. The conjecture with coefficients implies the fibered version of the Farrell-Jones Conjecture.Comment: 21 page

Algebraic K-theory over the infinite dihedral group: a controlled topology approach

We use controlled topology applied to the action of the infinite dihedral group on a partially compactified plane and deduce two consequences for algebraic K-theory. The first is that the family in the K-theoretic Farrell-Jones conjecture can be reduced to only those virtually cyclic groups which admit a surjection with finite kernel onto a cyclic group. The second is that the Waldhausen Nil groups for a group which maps epimorphically onto the infinite dihedral group can be computed in terms of the Farrell-Bass Nil groups of the index two subgroup which maps surjectively to the infinite cyclic group.Comment: Accepted for publication by the Journal of Topology, 23 pages, proof of Lemma 4.1 simplifie

Algebraic K-theory of group rings and the cyclotomic trace map

We prove that the Farrell-Jones assembly map for connective algebraic K-theory is rationally injective, under mild homological finiteness conditions on the group and assuming that a weak version of the Leopoldt-Schneider conjecture holds for cyclotomic fields. This generalizes a result of B\"okstedt, Hsiang, and Madsen, and leads to a concrete description of a large direct summand of $K_n(\mathbb{Z}[G])\otimes_{\mathbb{Z}}\mathbb{Q}$ in terms of group homology. In many cases the number theoretic conjectures are true, so we obtain rational injectivity results about assembly maps, in particular for Whitehead groups, under homological finiteness assumptions on the group only. The proof uses the cyclotomic trace map to topological cyclic homology, B\"okstedt-Hsiang-Madsen's functor C, and new general isomorphism and injectivity results about the assembly maps for topological Hochschild homology and C.Comment: To appear in Advances in Mathematics. 77 page

Commuting homotopy limits and smash products

In general the processes of taking a homotopy inverse limit of a diagram of spectra and smashing spectra with a fixed space do not commute. In this paper we investigate under what additional assumptions these two processes do commute. In fact we deal with an equivariant generalization which involves spectra and smash products over the orbit category of a discrete group. Such a situation naturally occurs if one studies the equivariant homology theory associated to topological cyclic homology. The main theorem of this paper will play a role in the generalization of the results obtained by Boekstedt, Hsiang and Madsen about the algebraic K-theory Novikov Conjecture to the assembly map for the family of virtually cyclic subgroups.Comment: 23 page