In algebraic topology, universal coefficient theorems establish relationships between homology groups (or cohomology groups) with different coefficients. For instance, for every topological space X, its integral homology groups:
completely determine its homology groups with coefficients in A, for any abelian group A:
Here Hi might be the simplicial homology, or more generally the singular homology. The usual proof of this result is a pure piece of homological algebra about chain complexes of free abelian groups. The form of the result is that other coefficients A may be used, at the cost of using a Tor functor.
For example it is common to take A to be Z/2Z, so that coefficients are modulo 2. This becomes straightforward in the absence of 2-torsion in the homology. Quite generally, the result indicates the relationship that holds between the Betti numbers bi of X and the Betti numbers bi,F with coefficients in a field F. These can differ, but only when the characteristic of F is a prime number p for which there is some p-torsion in the homology.