Cohomology of split group extensions, II

Abstract

They introduced a spectral sequence relating the cohomology of G (with a suitable filtration) to the cohomologies of G/K and K. In later developments, Charlap and Vasquez [5, 61 showed that, under suitable restrictions, d, of the Hochschild-Serre spectral sequence can be described as the cup product with certain “characteristic” cohomology classes. In the special case where K is a free abelian group L of finite rank N and when G splits over K by r = G/K, these characteristic classes v 2t lie in H2(r, fP1(L, H,(L, Z))). Through straightforward, though formidable, procedures, Charlap and Vasquez found a number of interesting results concerning these characteristic classes. However, these characteristic classes still appeared mysterious and difficult to handle. The purpose of the present paper is to present a procedure to determine the most important one of these characteristic classes. To be precise, Charlap and Vasquez showed that vZt E H2(F, fPl(L, H,(L, Z))) have orders dividing 2; vsl = 0 and vpt = 0 holds for all t if and only if v22 = 0. They also showed that vZt are functorial in r so that vZt are universal when .F = GL(N, Z). We show that H2(GL(N, Z), HI(L, H,(L, Z))) is a group of order 2 for N > 2, and when N > 2, its generator is the universal characteristic class. Along the way, we calculate a number of cohomology groups similar to the one described. Our results and procedures can be applied to study the torsion of the total space of certain fibered varieties over symmetric space with abelian varieties for fibers (cf. Kuga [14]). Th ese applications will appear in a subsequent paper. Some of the cohomology group calculations are also useful in the study of finite simple groups. Indeed, one of the phenomena that persists throughout