Lyndon–Hochschild–Serre spectral sequence

In mathematics, especially in the fields of group cohomology, homological algebra and number theory, the Lyndon spectral sequence or Hochschild–Serre spectral sequence is a spectral sequence relating the group cohomology of a normal subgroup N and the quotient group G/N to the cohomology of the total group G. The spectral sequence is named after Roger Lyndon, Gerhard Hochschild, and Jean-Pierre Serre.

Statement

The precise statement is as follows:

Let G be a group and N be a normal subgroup. The latter ensures that the quotient G/N is a group, as well. Finally, let A be a G-module. Then there is a spectral sequence of cohomological type

$H^{p}(G/N,H^{q}(N,A))\to H^{p+q}(G,A)$

and there is a spectral sequence of homological type

$H_{p}(G/N,H_{q}(N,A))\to H_{p+q}(G,A)$.

The same statement holds if G is a profinite group, N is a closed normal subgroup and H* denotes the continuous cohomology.

Example: Cohomology of the Heisenberg group

The spectral sequence can be used to compute the homology of the Heisenberg group G with integral entries, i.e., matrices of the form

$\left({\begin{array}{ccc}1&a&b\\0&1&c\\0&0&1\end{array}}\right),\ a,b,c\in \mathbb {Z} .$

This group is a central extension

$0\to \mathbb {Z} \to G\to \mathbb {Z} \oplus \mathbb {Z} \to 0$

with center $\mathbb {Z}$ corresponding to the subgroup with a=c=0. The spectral sequence for the group homology, together with the analysis of a differential in this spectral sequence, shows that

$H_{i}(G,\mathbb {Z} )=\left\{{\begin{array}{cc}\mathbb {Z} &i=0,3\\\mathbb {Z} \oplus \mathbb {Z} &i=1,2\\0&i>3.\end{array}}\right.$

Example: Cohomology of wreath products

For a group G, the wreath product is an extension

$1\to G^{p}\to G\wr \mathbb {Z} /p\to \mathbb {Z} /p\to 1.$

The resulting spectral sequence of group cohomology with coefficients in a field k,

$H^{r}(\mathbb {Z} /p,H^{s}(G^{p},k))\Rightarrow H^{r+s}(G\wr \mathbb {Z} /p,k),$

is known to degenerate at the $E_{2}$-page.

Properties

The associated five-term exact sequence is the usual inflation-restriction exact sequence:

$0\to H^{1}(G/N,A^{N})\to H^{1}(G,A)\to H^{1}(N,A)^{G/N}\to H^{2}(G/N,A^{N})\to H^{2}(G,A).$

Generalizations

The spectral sequence is an instance of the more general Grothendieck spectral sequence of the composition of two derived functors. Indeed, $H^{*}(G,-)$ is the derived functor of $(-)^{G}$ (i.e., taking G-invariants) and the composition of the functors $(-)^{N}$ and $(-)^{G/N}$ is exactly $(-)^{G}$.

A similar spectral sequence exists for group homology, as opposed to group cohomology, as well.

References

• Lyndon, Roger C. (1948), "The cohomology theory of group extensions", Duke Mathematical Journal, 15 (1): 271–292, doi:10.1215/S0012-7094-48-01528-2, ISSN 0012-7094 (paywalled)
• Hochschild, Gerhard; Serre, Jean-Pierre (1953), "Cohomology of group extensions", Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, 74 (1): 110–134, doi:10.2307/1990851, ISSN 0002-9947, JSTOR 1990851, MR 0052438
• Neukirch, Jürgen; Schmidt, Alexander; Wingberg, Kay (2000), Cohomology of Number Fields, Grundlehren der Mathematischen Wissenschaften, vol. 323, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-540-66671-4, MR 1737196, Zbl 0948.11001