On the topological computation of $$K_4$$ of the Gaussian and Eisenstein integers

Abstract

In this paper we use topological tools to investigate the structure of the algebraic K-groups \(K_4(R)\) for \(R=Z[i]\) and \(R=Z[\rho ]\) where \(i := \sqrt{-1}\) and \(\rho := (1+\sqrt{-3})/2\). We exploit the close connection between homology groups of \(\mathrm {GL}_n(R)\) for \(n\le 5\) and those of related classifying spaces, then compute the former using Voronoi’s reduction theory of positive definite quadratic and Hermitian forms to produce a very large finite cell complex on which \(\mathrm {GL}_n(R)\) acts. Our main result is that \(K_{4} ({\mathbb {Z}}[i])\) and \(K_{4} ({\mathbb {Z}}[\rho ])\) have no p-torsion for \(p\ge 5\).