We construct geometric generators of the effective $S^1$-equivariant Spin- (and oriented) bordism groups with two inverted. We apply this construction to the question of which $S^1$-manifolds admit invariant metrics of positive scalar curvature.
It turns out that, up to taking connected sums with several copies of the same manifold, the only obstruction to the existence of such a metric is an $\hat{A}$-genus of orbit spaces. This $\hat{A}$-genus generalizes a previous definition of Lott for orbit spaces of semi-free $S^1$-actions.
As a further application of our results, we give a new proof of the vanishing of the $\hat{A}$-genus of a Spin manifold with non-trivial $S^1$-action originally proven by Atiyah and Hirzebruch. Moreover, based on our computations we can give a bordism-theoretic proof for the rigidity of elliptic genera originally proven by Taubes and Bott--Taubes.
We prove that total spaces of $CP^2$-bundles generate the oriented cobordism ring $Ω_*$. Combined with the surgery lemma this yields a somewhat different proof of Gromov's and Lawson's theorem that all simply connected non-spin manifolds of dimension $\geq$ 5 carry a metric of positive scalar curvature.
The Bryant-Ferry-Mio-Weinberger surgery exact sequence for high-dimensional compact ANR homology manifolds is used to obtain transversality, splitting and bordism results for homology manifolds, generalizing previous work of Johnston.
We construct a new family of toric manifolds generating the unitary bordism ring. Each manifold in the family is the complex projectivisation of the sum of a line bundle and a trivial bundle over a complex projective space. We also construct a family of special unitary quasitoric manifolds which contains polynomial generators of the special unitary bordism ring with 2 inverted in dimensions >8. Each manifold in the latter family is obtained from an iterated complex projectivisation of a sum of line bundles by amending the complex structure to make the first Chern class vanish.
We compute the equivariant bordism of free oriented $(\mathbb{Z}/p)^n$-manifolds as a module over $Ω_*^{SO}$, when $p$ is an odd prime. We show, among others, that this module is canonically isomorphic to a direct sum of suspensions of multiple tensor products of $Ω^{SO}_*(B \mathbb{Z}/p)$, and that it is generated by products of standard lens spaces. This considerably improves previous calculations by various authors. Our approach relies on the investigation of the submodule of the Brown-Peterson homology of $B (\mathbb{Z}/p)^n$ generated by elements coming from proper subgroups of $(\mathbb{…
The goal of this paper is to study the Pontrjagin dual of (reduced) 4-dimensional Spin bordism. That is to say, we consider the functor from the category of topological spaces to the category of compact abelian groups that associates to each space X the compact group of homomorphisms from the reduced 4-dimensional Spin bordism of X to the circle. In a previous paper, we studied the analogous problem for 3-dimensional Spin bordism. Our work was motivated by some questions from physics. The physicists are primarily interested in the case when X is the classifying space of a finite group, but our…
For every abelian compact Lie group A, we prove that the homotopical A-equivariant complex bordism ring, introduced by tom Dieck (1970), is isomorphic to the A-equivariant Lazard ring, introduced by Cole-Greenlees-Kriz (2000). This settles a conjecture of Greenlees. We also show an analog for homotopical real bordism rings over elementary abelian 2-groups. Our results generalize classical theorems of Quillen (1969) on the connection between non-equivariant bordism rings and formal group laws, and extend the case $A = C_2$ due to Hanke-Wiemeler (2018). We work in the framework of global homotop…
A classical theorem due to Quillen (1969) identifies the unitary bordism ring with the Lazard ring, which classifies the universal one-dimensional commutative formal group law. We prove an equivariant generalization of this result by identifying the homotopy theoretic $\mathbb{Z}/2$-equivariant unitary bordism ring, introduced by tom Dieck (1970), with the $\mathbb{Z}/2$-equivariant Lazard ring, introduced by Cole-Greenlees-Kriz (2000). Our proof combines a computation of the homotopy theoretic $\mathbb{Z}/2$-equivariant unitary bordism ring due to Strickland (2001) with a detailed investigati…
In this paper we study the rigidity of infinite volume 3-manifolds with sectional curvature $-b^2\le K\le -1$ and finitely generated fundamental group. In-particular, we generalize the Sullivan's quasi-conformal rigidity for finitely generated fundamental group with empty dissipative set to negative variable curvature 3-manifolds. We also generalize the rigidity of Hamenstädt or more recently Besson-Courtois-Gallot, to 3-manifolds with infinite volume and geometrically infinite fundamental group.
When can a map between manifolds be deformed away from itself? We describe a (normal bordism) obstruction which is often computable and in general much stronger than the classical primary obstruction in cohomology. In particular, it answers our question completely in a large dimension range. As an illustration we give explicit criteria in three sample settings: projections from Stiefel manifolds to Grassmannians, sphere bundle projections and maps defined on spheres. In the first example a theorem of Becker and Schultz concerning the framed bordism class of a compact Lie group plays a central …
We prove entropy rigidity for finite volume strictly convex projective manifolds in dimensions $\geq 3$, generalizing the work of arXiv:1708.03983 to the finite volume setting. The rigidity theorem uses the techniques of Besson, Courtois, and Gallot's entropy rigidity theorem. It implies uniform lower bounds on the volume of any finite volume strictly convex projective manifold in dimensions $\geq 3$.
We make a few observations on the absence of geometric and topological rigidity for acylindrically hyperbolic and relatively hyperbolic groups. In particular, we demonstrate the lack of a well-defined limit set for acylindrical actions on hyperbolic spaces, even under the assumption of universality. We also prove a statement about relatively hyperbolic groups inspired by a remark by Groves, Manning, and Sisto about the quasi-isometry type of combinatorial cusps. Finally, we summarize these results in a table in order to assert a meta-statement about the decay of metric rigidity as the conditio…
We consider a coarse version of the marked length spectrum rigidity: given a group with two left invariant metrics, if the marked length spectrum (the translation length function) under the two metrics are the same, then the two metrics are uniformly close. We prove the rigidity theorem for relatively hyperbolic groups. This generalizes a result of Fujiwara.
