University Paris 13

In an article published in 2009, Dave Benson described, for a finite group $G$, the mod $p$ homology of the space $\Omega(BG^\wedge_p)$ --- the loop space of the $p$-completion of $BG$ --- in purely algebraic terms. In joint work with Carles Broto and Ran Levi, we have tried to better understand Benson's result by generalizing it. We showed that when $\mathcal{C}$ is a small category, $|\mathcal{C}|$ is its geometric realization, $R$ is a commutative ring, and $|\mathcal{C}|^+_R$ is a plus construction of $|\mathcal{C}|$ with respect to homology with coefficients in $R$, then $H_*(\Omega(|\mathcal{C}|^+_R);R)$ is the homology any chain complex of projective $R\mathcal{C}$-modules that satisfies certain conditions. Benson's theorem is then the special case where $\mathcal{C}$ is the category associated to a finite group $G$ and $R=F_p$, so that $p$-completion is a special case of the plus construction.