We explore a theory of depth for finitely generated FI G -modules. Using this theory, we prove results about the regularity, and provide novel bounds on stable ranges of FI-modules, making effective a theorem of Nagpal and thereby refining the stable range in results of Church, Ellenberg, and Farb.
IntroductionLet G be a group. The category FI G , introduced in [SS2], is that whose objects are finite sets, and whose morphisms are pairs (f, g) : S → T such that f : S → T is an injection, and g : S → G is a map of sets. If G = 1 is the trivial group, then FI G is equivalent to the category FI of finite sets and injections. The full subcategory of FI G whose objects are the sets [n] := {1, . . . , n} is equivalent to FI G , and we therefore often identify the two. For any commutative ring k, an FI G -module over k is a covariant functor V : FI G → Mod k . We will often write V n := V ([n]).In the present paper we study various homological invariants of FI G -modules, and show how they relate to concrete questions about stability. In particular, we generalize the bounds on Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity in [CE, Theorem A], and provide explicit bounds on results from [CEFN, Theorem B] and [NS]. If V is an FI G -module, then we define H 0 (V ) on any finite set [n] to be the quotient of V n by the images of all [n]) and m < n. The functor V → H 0 (V ) is right exact, and we define its right derived functors, H i , to be the homology functors. The paper [CE] studied these functors in the case of FI-modules, and showed various applications to the homology of congruence subgroups. Subsequently, Calegari and Emerton used the results of Church and Ellenberg in studying the homology of arithmetic groups [CaE, Theorem 5.2].After reviewing some preliminary topics, we next turn our attention to bounding the regularity of FI Gmodules. We define the degree of an FI G -module to be the largest integer n for which V n = 0, while V r = 0 whenever r > n. We say that V is generated in degree ≤ m if deg(H 0 (V )) ≤ m (See Definition 2.7). Similarly, we say that V has first homological degree ≤ r if deg(H 1 (V )) ≤ r (See Definition 2.7, and Remark 2.16 for more on this definition). If a module has finite generating and relation degrees, then it is said to be presented in finite degree. The regularity of V is the smallest integer N such that deg(H i (V )) − i ≤ N for all i ≥ 1 (see Definition 2.15). It was proven by Sam and Snowden in [SS3, Corollary 6.3.5] that finitely generated FI-modules in characteristic zero have finite regularity. Following this, Church and Ellenberg proved that FI-modules which are presented in finite degree have finite regularity over any ring, and they provided a bound on this regularity [CE, Theorem A]. More recently, Li and Yu have provided different bounds on the regularity of FI-modules [LY, Theorem 1.8]. One of the goals of this paper is to prove that similar bounds exist for FI G -modules. Indeed, we will find that the regularity of a module V , which is presented in finite degree, can be bounded in term...