Stable twisted cohomology of the mapping class groups in the exterior powers of the unit tangent bundle homology

Abstract

We study the stable cohomology groups of the mapping class groups of surfaces with twisted coefficients given by the $d^{th}$ exterior powers of the first rational homology of the unit tangent bundles of the surfaces $\tilde{H}_{\mathbb{Q}}$. These coefficients are outside of the traditional framework of cohomological stability. They form a module $H_{\mathrm{st}}^{*}(\Lambda^{d}\tilde{H}_{\mathbb{Q}})$ over the stable cohomology algebra of the mapping class groups with trivial coefficients denoted by $\mathrm{Sym}_{\mathbb{Q}}(\mathcal{E})$. If $d\neq 2$, the $\mathrm{Tor}$-group in each degree of $H_{\mathrm{st}}^{*}(\Lambda^{d}\tilde{H}_{\mathbb{Q}})$ does not vanish, and we compute all these $\mathrm{Tor}$-groups explicitly for $d \leq 5$. In particular, for each $d\neq 2$, the module $H_{\mathrm{st}}^{*}(\Lambda^{d}\tilde{H}_{\mathbb{Q}})$ is not free over $\mathrm{Sym}_{\mathbb{Q}}(\mathcal{E})$, while it is free for $d=2$.For comparison, we also compute the stable cohomology group with coefficients in the $d^{th}$ exterior powers of the first rational cohomology of the unit tangent bundle of the surface, which fit into the classical framework of cohomological stability.