Let $π$ be a group satisfying the Farrell-Jones conjecture and assume that $Bπ$ is a 4-dimensional Poincaré duality space. We consider topological, closed, connected manifolds with fundamental group $π$ whose canonical map to $Bπ$ has degree 1 and show that two such manifolds are s-cobordant if and only if their equivariant intersection forms are isometric and they have the same Kirby-Siebenmann invariant. If $π$ is good in the sense of Freedman, it follows that two such manifolds are homeomorphic if and only if they are homotopy equivalent and have the same Kirby--Siebenmann invariant. This shows rigidity in many cases that lie between aspherical 4-manifolds, where rigidity is expected by Borel's conjecture, and simply connected manifolds where rigidity is a consequence of Freedman's classification results.
This is a survey paper where we expose the Kirby--Siebenmann results on classification of PL structures on topological manifolds and, in particular, the homotopy equivalence TOP/PL=K(Z/2.3) and the Hauptvermutung for manifolds.
We find conditions which ensure that the topological complexity of a closed manifold $M$ with abelian fundamental group is nonmaximal, and see through examples that our conditions are sharp. This generalizes results of Costa and Farber on the topological complexity of spaces with small fundamental group. Relaxing the commutativity condition on the fundamental group, we also generalize results of Dranishnikov on the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of the cofibre of the diagonal map $Δ: M \to M \times M$ for nonorientable surfaces by establishing the nonmaximality of this invariant for a large c…
The Lusternik-Schnirelmann category and topological complexity are important invariants of manifolds (and more generally, topological spaces). We study the behavior of these invariants under the operation of taking the connected sum of manifolds. We give a complete answer for the LS-categoryof orientable manifolds, $\cat(M\# N)=\max\{\cat M,\cat N\}$. For topological complexity we prove the inequality $\TC (M\# N)\ge\max\{\TC M,\TC N\}$ for simply connected manifolds.
We classify closed, topological spin$^+$ 4-manifolds with fundamental group $π$ of cohomological dimension $\leq 3$ (up to s-cobordism), after stabilization by connected sum with at most $b_3(π)$ copies of $S^2\times S^2$. In general we must also assume that $π$ also satisfies certain K-theory and assembly map conditions. Examples for which these conditions hold include the torsion-free fundamental groups of 3-manifolds and all right-angled Artin groups whose defining graphs have no 4-cliques.
We give a new proof of an index theorem for fiber bundles of compact topological manifolds due to Dwyer, Weiss, and Williams, which asserts that the parametrized $A$-theory characteristic of such a fiber bundle factors canonically through the assembly map of $A$-theory. Furthermore our main result shows a refinement of this statement by providing such a factorization for an extended $A$-theory characteristic, defined on the parametrized topological cobordism category. The proof uses a convenient framework for bivariant theories and recent results of Gomez-Lopez and Kupers on the homotopy type …
Closed oriented 4-manifolds with the same geometrically 2-dimensional fundamental group (satisfying certain properties) are classified up to $s$-cobordism by their $w_2$-type, equivariant intersection form and the Kirby-Siebenmann invariant. As an application, we obtain a complete homeomorphism classification of closed oriented 4-manifolds with solvable Baumslag-Solitar fundamental groups, including a precise realization result.
A recent result of Bader, Gelander and Sauer shows that for manifolds of pinched negative curvature, the torsion part of the homology can be controlled by the volume. This is done by constructing an efficient simplicial model of the thick part, which also provides another proof of the analogous statement for the free part of the homology, a classical theorem due to Gromov. We will extend these results to more general curvature conditions, namely the case where the sectional curvature can get arbitrarily close to zero, but the visibility axiom still holds.
We show that every topological n-manifold M admits a locally flat closed embedding $ι\colon M \hookrightarrow \mathbb{R}^{2n+1}$ and is a retract of some neighbourhood $U \subseteq \mathbb{R}^{2n+1}$
We show that infinitely many of the simply connected 4-manifolds constructed by Levine and Lidman that do not admit PL spines actually admit topological spines.
We prove that for every closed, connected, orientable, irreducible 3-manifold, there exists an alternating group A_n which is not the topological symmetry group of any graph embedded in the manifold. We also show that for every finite group G, there is an embedding Γ of some graph in a hyperbolic rational homology 3-sphere such that the topological symmetry group of Γ is isomorphic to G.
A homotopy equivalence between a hyperbolic 3-manifold and a closed irreducible 3-manifold is homotopic to a homeomorphsim provided the hyperbolic manifold satisfies a purely geometric condition. There are no known examples of hyperbolic 3-manifolds which do not satisfy this condition.
To each isolated critical point of a smooth function on a 3-manifold we put in correspondence a tree (graph without cycles). We will prove that functions are topologically equivalent in the neighborhoods of critical points if and only if the corresponding trees are isomorphic. A complete topological invariant of functions with isolated critical points, on a closed 3-manifold, will be constructed.
For a closed 4-manifold X and closed 3-manifold M we investigate the smallest integer n (perhaps infinity) such that M embeds in the connected sum of n copies of X. It is proven that any lens space (or homology lens space) embeds topologically locally flatly in a connected sum of 8 copies of the complex projective plane.
We show that, up to topological conjugation, the equivalence class of a Morse-Smale diffeomorphism without heteroclinic curves on 3-manifold is completely defined by an em- bedding of two-dimensional stable and unstable heteroclinic laminations to a characteristic space.
We prove a structure theorem for closed topological manifolds of cohomogeneity one; this result corrects an oversight in the literature. We complete the equivariant classification of closed, simply connected cohomogeneity one topological manifolds in dimensions $5$, $6$, and $7$ and obtain topological characterizations of these spaces. In these dimensions, these manifolds are homeomorphic to smooth manifolds.
In this note we study whether specific elements in the second homology of specific simply connected closed $4$-manifolds can be represented by smooth or topologically flat embedded spheres.
Let $G$ be a compact Lie group. (Compact) topological $G$-manifolds have the $G$-homotopy type of (finite-dimensional) countable $G$-CW complexes (2.5). This partly generalizes Elfving's theorem for locally linear $G$-manifolds [Elf96], wherein the Lie group $G$ is linear (such as compact).
The Borel Conjecture predicts that closed aspherical manifolds are topological rigid. We want to investigate when a non-aspherical oriented connected closed manifold M is topological rigid in the following sense. If f: N --> M is an orientation preserving homotopy equivalence with a closed oriented manifold as target, then there is an orientation preserving homeomorphism h: N --> M such that h and f induce up to conjugation the same maps on the fundamental groups. We call such manifolds Borel manifolds. We give partial answers to this questions for S^k x S^d, for sphere bundles over aspherical…
If a graph is in bridge position in a 3-manifold so that the graph complement is irreducible and boundary irreducible, we generalize a result of Bachman and Schleimer to prove that the complexity of a surface properly embedded in the complement of the graph bounds the graph distance of the bridge surface. We use this result to construct, for any natural number $n$, a hyperbolic manifold containing a surface of topological index $n$.
We introduce a topological invariant, it a type of a graph-manifold, which takes natural values. For a 4-dimensional graph-manifold, whose type does not exceed two, it is proved that its universal cover is bi-Lipschitz equivalent to a universal cover of an orthogonal graph-manifold (for any Riemannian metrics on graph-manifolds).
We build a connection between topology of smooth 4-manifolds and the theory of topological modular forms by considering topologically twisted compactification of 6d (1,0) theories on 4-manifolds with flavor symmetry backgrounds. The effective 2d theory has (0,1) supersymmetry and, possibly, a residual flavor symmetry. The equivariant topological Witten genus of this 2d theory then produces a new invariant of the 4-manifold equipped with a principle bundle, valued in the ring of equivariant weakly holomorphic (topological) modular forms. We describe basic properties of this map and present a fe…
The disk complex of a surface in a 3-manifold is used to define its {\it topological index}. Surfaces with well-defined topological index are shown to generalize well-known classes, such as incompressible, strongly irreducible, and critical surfaces. The main result is that one may always isotope a surface $H$ with topological index $n$ to meet an incompressible surface $F$ so that the sum of the indices of the components of $H \setminus N(F)$ is at most $n$. This theorem and its corollaries generalize many known results about surfaces in 3-manifolds, and often provides more efficient proofs. …
The goal of this article is to establish estimates involving the Yamabe minimal volume, mixed minimal volume and some topological invariants on compact 4-manifolds. In addition, we provide topological sphere theorems for compact submanifolds of spheres and Euclidean spaces, provided that the full norm of the second fundamental form is suitably bounded.
Let $G$ be a matrix group. Topological $G$-manifolds with Palais-proper action have the $G$-homotopy type of countable $G$-CW complexes (3.2). This generalizes E Elfving's dissertation theorem for locally linear $G$-manifolds (1996). Also we improve the Bredon--Floyd theorem from compact groups $G$ (1960).
We introduce a natural subset of the unit tangent bundle of a convex projective manifold, the biproximal unit tangent bundle; it is closed and invariant under the geodesic flow, and we prove that the geodesic flow is topologically mixing on it whenever the manifold is irreducible. We also show that, for higher-rank, irreducible, compact convex projective manifolds, the geodesic flow is topologically mixing on each connected component of the non-wandering set.
We prove the unrolled superalgebra $\mathcal{U}_ξ^{H}\mathfrak{sl}(2|1)$ has a completion which is a ribbon superalgebra in a topological sense where $ξ$ is a root of unity of odd order. Using this ribbon superalgebra we construct its universal invariant of links. We use it to construct an invariant of $3$-manifolds of Hennings type.
We develop a theory of Nobeling manifolds similar to the theory of Hilbert space manifolds. We show that it reflects the theory of Menger manifolds developed by M. Bestvina and is its counterpart in the realm of complete spaces. In particular, the Nobeling manifold characterization conjecture is proven.
We prove that a class of asymptotically nonnegatively curved manifolds (in the sense of Abresch) satisfying some uniform Euclidean type volume growth conditions contains only finitely many homeomorphism types.
The article consists of a survey on analytic and topological torsion. Analytic torsion is defined in terms of the spectrum of the analytic Laplace operator on a Riemannian manifold, whereas topological torsion is defined in terms of a triangulation. The celebrated theorem of Cheeger and Müller identifies these two notions for closed Riemannian manifolds. We also deal with manifolds with boundary and with isometric actions of finite groups. The basic theme is to extract topological invariants from the spectrum of the analytic Laplace operator on a Riemannian manifold.
We create Resthetikhin-Turaev topological invariants of closed orientable three-manifolds from the quantum supergroup U_q(osp(1|2n)) at certain even roots of unity. To construct the invariants we develop tensor product theorems for finite dimensional modules of U_q(osp(1|2n)) at roots of unity.
We study closed, oriented 4-manifolds whose fundamental group is that of a closed, oriented, aspherical 3-manifold. We show that two such 4-manifolds are stably diffeomorphic if and only if they have the same w_2-type and their equivariant intersection forms are stably isometric. We also find explicit algebraic invariants that determine the stable classification for spin manifolds in this class.
We study the fundamental groups of compact Sasakian manifolds, which we call Sasaki groups. It is shown that all known K$\ddot{a}$hler groups are Sasaki, in particular, all finite groups are Sasaki. On the other hand, we show there exists many restrictions on the fundamental groups of compact Sasakian manifolds. We also study the Abel-Jacobi map of a compact Sasakian manifold and its applications to Sasaki groups.
The Hilbert-Smith conjecture states, for any connected topological manifold $M$, any locally compact subgroup of $\mathrm{Homeo}(M)$ is a Lie group. We generalize basic results of Segal-Kosniowski-tomDieck (2.6), James-Segal (2.12), G Bredon (3.7), Jaworowski-Antonyan et al. (5.5), and E Elfving (7.3). The last is our main result: for any Lie group $G$, any Palais-proper topological $G$-manifold has the equivariant homotopy type of a countable proper $G$-CW complex. Along the way, we verify an $n$-classifying space for principal $G$-bundles (5.10).
This is an exposition of results on the existence problem of $π_1$-injective immersed and embedded surfaces in graph-manifolds, and also of nonpositively curved metrics on graph-manifolds, obtained by different authors. The results are represented from a unified point of view based on the notion of compatible cohomological classes and some difference equation on the graph of a graph-manifold (BKN-equation). Criteria for seven different properties of graph-manifolds at three levels are given: at the level of compatible cohomological classes; at the level of solutions to the BKN-equation; in ter…
Some generalizations and variations of the Fintushel-Stern rim surgery are known to produce smoothly knotted surfaces. We show that if the fundamental groups of their complements are cyclic, then these surfaces are topologically unknotted. Using a twist-spinning construction from high-dimensional knot theory, we construct examples of knotted surfaces whose complements have cyclic fundamental groups.
A myriad of irreducible symplectic 4-manifolds with abelian non-cyclic fundamental group is constructed. The botany of manifolds with finite non-cyclic fundamental groups is also studied.
Suppose M is a non-compact connected smooth n-manifold. Let D(M) denote the group of diffeomorphisms of M endowed with the compact-open C^\infty-topology and D^c(M) denote the subgroup consisting of diffeomorphisms of M with compact support. Let D(M)_0 and D^c(M)_0 be the connected components of id_M in D(M) and D^c(M) respectively. In this paper we show that the pair (D(M), D^c(M)) admits a topological (\prod^ω\ell_2, \sum^ω\ell_2)-factor. In the case n = 2, this enables us to apply the characterization of (\prod^ω\ell_2, \sum^ω\ell_2)-manifolds and show that the pair (D(M)_0, D^c(M)_0) is a …
We study Riemannian metrics on compact, torsionless, non-geometric $3$-manifolds, i.e. whose interior does not support any of the eight model geometries. We prove a lower bound "à la Margulis" for the systole and a volume estimate for these manifolds, only in terms of an upper bound of entropy and diameter. We then deduce corresponding local topological rigidy results in the class $\mathscr{M}_{ngt}^\partial (E,D) $ of compact non-geometric 3-manifolds with torsionless fundamental group (with possibly empty, non-spherical boundary) whose entropy and diameter are bounded respectively by $E, D$.…
Let $X$ be a closed oriented connected topological manifold of dimension $n\geq 5$. The structure group of $X$ is the abelian group of equivalence classes of all pairs $(f, M)$ such that $M$ is a closed oriented manifold and $f\colon M \to X$ is an orientation-preserving homotopy equivalence. The main purpose of this article is to prove that a higher rho invariant defines a group homomorphism from the topological structure group of $X$ to the $C^*$-algebraic structure group of $X$. In fact, we introduce a higher rho invariant map on the homology manifold structure group of a closed oriented co…
We obtain a description of Poisson--Furstenberg boundaries for (random walks on) fundamental groups of compact graph-manifolds. Together with previously known results due to V.A. Kaimanovich and others, this allows one to obtain descriptions of Poisson--Furstenberg boundaries for fundamental groups of all closed 3-manifolds.
In this paper we prove the existence of a natural mapping from the surgery exact sequence for topological manifolds to the analytic surgery exact sequence of N. Higson and J. Roe. This generalizes the fundamental result of Higson and Roe, but in the treatment given by Piazza and Schick, from smooth manifolds to topological manifolds. Crucial to our treatment is the Lipschitz signature operator of Teleman. We also give a generalization to the equivariant setting of the product defined by Siegel in his Ph.D. thesis. Geometric applications are given to stability results for rho classes. We also o…
We survey the status of some decision problems for 3-manifolds and their fundamental groups. This includes the classical decision problems for finitely presented groups (Word Problem, Conjugacy Problem, Isomorphism Problem), and also the Homeomorphism Problem for 3-manifolds and the Membership Problem for 3-manifold groups.
We introduce a homology theory whose Euler characteristics counts ASD bundles over four dimensional co-associative submanifolds in (almost) G_2 manifolds. As a TQFT, in relative situations, we have the Fukaya-Floer category of Lagrangians intersection in the moduli space of special Lagrangian submanifolds in CY threefolds.
