Categorifying induction formulae via divergent series

Abstract

We show how to get explicit induction formulae for finite group representations, and more generally for rational Green functors, by summing a divergent series over Dwyer's subgroup and centralizer decomposition spaces. This results in formulae with rational coefficients. The former space yields a well-known induction formula, the latter yields a new one. As essentially immediate corollaries of the existing literature, we get similar formulae in group cohomology and stable splittings of classifying spaces.