Some Historical Background This book deals with the cohomology of groups, particularly finite ones. Historically, the subject has been one of significant interaction between algebra and topology and has directly led to the creation of such important areas of mathematics as homo logical algebra and algebraic K-theory. It arose primarily in the 1920's and 1930's independently in number theory and topology. In topology the main focus was on the work ofH. Hopf, but B. Eckmann, S. Eilenberg, and S. MacLane (among others) made significant contributions. The main thrust of the early work here was to try to understand the meanings of the low dimensional homology groups of a space X. For example, if the universal cover of X was three connected, it was known that H2(X; A. ) depends only on the fundamental group of X. Group cohomology initially appeared to explain this dependence. In number theory, group cohomology arose as a natural device for describing the main theorems of class field theory and, in particular, for describing and analyzing the Brauer group of a field. It also arose naturally in the study of group extensions, N

Group cohomology has a rich history that goes back a century or more. Its origins are rooted in investigations of group theory and num ber theory, and it grew into an integral component of algebraic topology. In the last thirty years, group cohomology has developed a powerful con nection with finite group representations. Unlike the early applications which were primarily concerned with cohomology in low degrees, the in teractions with representation theory involve cohomology rings and the geometry of spectra over these rings. It is this connection to represen tation theory that we take as our primary motivation for this book. The book consists of two separate pieces. Chronologically, the first part was the computer calculations of the mod-2 cohomology rings of the groups whose orders divide 64. The ideas and the programs for the calculations were developed over the last 10 years. Several new features were added over the course of that time. We had originally planned to include only a brief introduction to the calculations. However, we were persuaded to produce a more substantial text that would include in greater detail the concepts that are the subject of the calculations and are the source of some of the motivating conjectures for the com putations. We have gathered together many of the results and ideas that are the focus of the calculations from throughout the mathematical literature.

The seminar focuses on a recent solution, by the authors, of a long standing problem concerning the stable module category (of not necessarily finite dimensional representations) of a finite group. The proof draws on ideas from commutative algebra, cohomology of groups, and stable homotopy theory. The unifying theme is a notion of support which provides a geometric approach for studying various algebraic structures. The prototype for this has been Daniel Quillen’s description of the algebraic variety corresponding to the cohomology ring of a finite group, based on which Jon Carlson introduced support varieties for modular representations. This has made it possible to apply methods of algebraic geometry to obtain representation theoretic information. Their work has inspired the development of analogous theories in various contexts, notably modules over commutative complete intersection rings and over cocommutative Hopf algebras. One of the threads in this development has been the classification of thick or localizing subcategories of various triangulated categories of representations. This story started with Mike Hopkins’ classification of thick subcategories of the perfect complexes over a commutative Noetherian ring, followed by a classification of localizing subcategories of its full derived category, due to Amnon Neeman. The authors have been developing an approach to address such classification problems, based on a construction of local cohomology functors and support for triangulated categories with ring of operators. The book serves as an introduction to this circle of ideas.

An introduction to modern developments in the representation theory of finite groups and associative algebras.

This volume combines contributions in topology and representation theory that reflect the increasingly vigorous interactions between these areas. Topics such as group theory, homotopy theory, cohomology of groups, and modular representations are covered. All papers have been carefully refereed and offer lasting value.

Proceedings of the Conference on Finite Groups provides information pertinent to the fundamental aspects of finite group theory. This book presents the problem of characterizing simple groups in terms of the local structure of a group. Organized into five parts encompassing 43 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the characterization of the Chevalley groups over fields of odd order and indicates the role of this characterization in the theory of component type groups. This text then examines the structure as well as the representations of specific simple groups. Other chapters consider the general theory of representations and characters of finite groups. This book discusses as well permutation groups and the connection between group theory and geometry. The final chapter deals with finite solvable groups as well as the theory of formations. This book is a valuable resource for mathematicians, graduate students, and research workers.

Aimed at second year graduate students, this text introduces them to cohomology theory (involving a rich interplay between algebra and topology) with a minimum of prerequisites. No homological algebra is assumed beyond what is normally learned in a first course in algebraic topology, and the basics of the subject, as well as exercises, are given prior to discussion of more specialized topics.