Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2014
Let Λ be a finite-dimensional algebra and G be a finite group whose elements act on Λ as algebra automorphisms. Assume that Λ has a complete set E of primitive orthogonal idempotents, closed under the action of a Sylow p-subgroup S ≤ G. If the action of S on E is free, we show that the skew group algebra Λ G and Λ have the same finitistic dimension, and have the same strong global dimension if the fixed algebra ΛS is a direct summand of the ΛS-bimodule Λ. Using a homological characterization of piecewise hereditary algebras proved by Happel and Zacharia, we deduce a criterion for Λ G to be piecewise hereditary.