Some geometric equivariant cohomology theories

Abstract

In this paper we give a geometric construction of the Borel equivariant (co)homology for spaces with a $G$-action, where $G$ is a compact Lie group with the property that the adjoint representation is orientable. A nice feature of these constructions is that there are corresponding Poincar\'e dual (co)homology theories called backwards (co)homology. This gives rise to a third relative (co)homology theory which we call stratifold Tate (co)homology. These Tate groups agree with the original definition of Tate cohomology for finite groups given by Swan. All constructions in this paper are geometric and use stratifolds. One advantage of this description is that elements in these groups can be described concretely by representatives. We give some examples of that.