Cellularization of classifying spaces and fusion properties of finite groups

Abstract

One way to understand the mod p homotopy theory of classifying spaces of finite groups is to compute their Bℤ/p-cellularization. In the easiest cases this is a classifying space of a finite group (always a finite p-group). If not, we show that it has infinitely many non-trivial homotopy groups. Moreover they are either p-torsion free or else infinitely many of them contain p-torsion. By means of techniques related to fusion systems we exhibit concrete examples where p-torsion appears and compute explicitly the cellularization.