Complexity and cohomology of cohomological Mackey functors

Abstract

Let $k$ be a field of characteristic $p>0$. Call a finite group $G$ a poco group over $k$ if any finitely generated cohomological Mackey functor for $G$ over $k$ has polynomial growth. The main result of this paper is that $G$ is a poco group over $k$ if and only if the Sylow $p$-subgroups of $G$ are cyclic, when $p>2$, or have sectional rank at most 2, when $p=2$. A major step in the proof is the case where $G$ is an elementary abelian $p$-group. In particular, when $p=2$, all the extension groups between simple functors can be determined completely, using a presentation of the graded algebra of self extensions of the simple functor $S_1^G$, by explicit generators and relations.