In mathematics, specifically in algebraic topology, the Eilenberg–Zilber theorem is an important result in establishing the link between the homology groups of a product space and those of the spaces and . The theorem first appeared in a 1953 paper in the American Journal of Mathematics.
The theorem can be formulated as follows. Suppose and are topological spaces, Then we have the three chain complexes , , and . (The argument applies equally to the simplicial or singular chain complexes.) We also have the tensor product complex , whose differential is, by definition,
for and , the differentials on ,.
Then the theorem says that we have a chain maps
such that is the identity and is chain-homotopic to the identity. Moreover, the maps are natural in and . Consequently the two complexes must have the same homology:
An important generalisation to the nonabelian case using crossed complexes is given in the paper by Tonks below. This give full details of a result on the (simplicial) classifying space of a crossed complex stated but not proved in the paper by Brown and Higgins on classifying spaces.
The Eilenberg–Zilber theorem is a key ingredient in establishing the Künneth theorem, which expresses the homology groups in terms of and . In light of the Eilenberg–Zilber theorem, the content of the Künneth theorem consists in analysing how the homology of the tensor product complex relates to the homologies of the factors; the answer is somewhat subtle.