L3

It a classical result from Kleinian groups that a discrete group, $G$, of isometries of hyperbolic k-space $\Bbb H^k$ will act on the

boundary sphere, $S^{k-1}$, of $\Bbb H^k$ as a convergence group.

That is:

For every sequence of distinct isometries $(g_i)\subset G$ there is a subsequence ${g_i{_j})$ and points $n,p \in \S^{k-1}$ such that for $ x \in S^{k-1} -\{n\}$, $g_i_{j}(x) \to p$ uniformly on compact subsets

Joint work with Soren Galatius. We study categories C of d-dimensional cobordisms, from the perspective of Galatius, Madsen, Tillmann and Weiss. Their main result is the determination of the homotopy type of the classifying-space of such cobordism categories, as the infinite loop space of a certain Thom spectrum. One can investigate subcategories D of C having the property that the classifying-space BD is equivalent to BC, the smaller such D one can find the better.

We prove that in may cases of interest, D can be taken to be a homotopy commutative monoid. As a consequence, the stable cohomology of many moduli spaces of surfaces can be identified with that of the infinite loop space of certain Thom spectra.