Hyperbolic manifolds without $\text{spin}^\mathbb{C}$ structures and non-vanishing higher order Stiefel-Whitney classes
Alan W. Reid, Connor Sell
备注：
13 pages. Added a new main result regarding manifolds without spin-c structures, and the corresponding secondary results. The authors thank Bruno Martelli for pointing out this application
We show that in every commensurability class of cusped arithmetic hyperbolic manifolds of simplest type of dimension $2n+2\geq 6$ there are manifolds $M$ such that the Stiefel-Whitney classes $w_{2j}(M)$ are non-vanishing for all $0 \leq 2j \leq n$. We also show that for the same commensurability classes there are manifolds (different from the previous ones) that do not admit a $\text{spin}^\mathbb{C}$ structure.
Real Bott manifolds is a class of flat manifolds with holonomy group $\mathbb Z_2^k$ of diagonal type. In this paper we want to show how we can compute even Stiefel - Whitney classes on real Bott manifolds. This paper is an answer to the question of professor Masuda if is it possible to extend A. Gąsior "Spin-structures on real Bott manifolds" (J. Korean Math. Soc. {\bf 54}, (2017), no. 2, 507 - 516) and compute any Stiefel-Whitney classes for real Bott manifolds. It also extends results of A. Gąsior, A. Szczepański "Flat manifolds with holonomy group $Z_2^k$ of diagonal type" (Osaka J. Math. …
We prove that the Stiefel-Whitney classes of a moment-angle manifold, not necessarily smooth, are trivial. We also consider Stiefel-Whitney classes of the partial quotient of a moment-angle manifold.
We introduce the secondary Stiefel-Whitney class $\tilde w_2$ of homotopically trivial diffeomorphisms and show that a homotopically trivial symplectomorphism of a ruled 4-manifold is isotopic to identity if and only if the class $\tilde w_2$ vanishes. Using this, we give a detailed description of the combinatorial structure of the diffeotopy group of ruled symplectic 4-manifolds $X$, either minimal or blown-up, and its action on the homology and homotopy groups $H_2(X,\zz)$, $π_1(X)$, and $π_2(X)$.
The famous Whitney formula relates the winding number of the smooth generic curve in the real plane to the number of its self-intersection points counted with appropriate signs. We extend this formula to smooth immersions of R^n to R^{2n}. Then use this result together with the general technique of Laplace integrals to get an explicit formula for the generator of the group H^n of Stiefel variety V(n,2n).
Let M be a compact closed non-orientable surface. We show that the space of representations of the fundamental group of M into PSL(2,R) has exactly two connected components. These two components are the preimages of a certain Stiefel-Whitney characteristic class, computed in a similar way as the Euler class in the orientable case.
This paper describes the relationship between the first non-vanishing Milnor invariants of a classical link and the intersection invariant of a twisted Whitney tower. This is a certain 2-complex in the 4-ball, built from immersed disks bounded by the given link in the 3-sphere together with finitely many `layers' of Whitney disks. The intersection invariant is a higher-order generalization of the intersection number between two immersed disks in the 4-ball, well known to give the linking number of the link on the boundary, which measures intersections among the Whitney disks and the disks boun…
After surveying existing proofs that every closed, orientable 3-manifold is parallelizable, we give three proofs using minimal background. In particular, our proofs use neither spin structures nor the theory of Stiefel-Whitney classes.
Let $N_k$ denote the closed non-orientable surface of genus $k$. In this paper we study the behaviour of the `square map' from the group of isometries of hyperbolic 3-space to the subgroup of orientation preserving isometries. We show that there are $2^{k+1}$ connected components of representations of $π_1(N_k)$ in Isom$(\mathbb{H}^3)$, which are distinguished by the Stiefel-Whitney classes of the associated flat bundle.
For each integer $d$ at least two, we construct non-spin closed oriented flat manifolds with holonomy group $\mathbb Z_2^d$ and with the property that all of their finite proper covers have a spin structure. Moreover, all such covers have trivial Stiefel-Whitney classes.
We show that a compact orientable 4-manifold M has a CR regular immersion into C3 if and only if both its first Pontryagin class and its Euler characteristic vanish, and has a CR regular embedding into C3 if and only if in addition the second Stiefel-Whitney class of M vanishes.
In all dimensions $n \ge 5$, we prove the existence of closed orientable hyperbolic manifolds that do not admit any $\text{spin}^c$ structure, and in fact we show that there are infinitely many commensurability classes of such manifolds. These manifolds all have non-vanishing third Stiefel--Whitney class $w_3$ and are all arithmetic of simplest type. More generally, we show that for each $k \ge 1$ and $n \ge 4k+1$, there exist infinitely many commensurability classes of closed orientable hyperbolic $n$-manifolds $M$ with $w_{4k-1}(M) \ne 0$.
For a topological space $X$ we study continuous maps $f : X\to \mathbb R^m$ such that images of every pairwise distinct $k$ points are affinely (linearly) independent. Such maps are called affinely (linearly) $k$-regular embeddings. We investigate the cohomology obstructions to existence of regular embeddings and give some new lower bounds on the dimension $m$ as function of $X$ and $k$, for the cases $X$ is $\mathbb R^n$ or $X$ is an $n$-dimensional manifold. In the latter case, some nonzero Stiefel--Whitney classes of $X$ help to improve the bound.
We give conceptual proofs of some well known results concerning compact non-positively curved locally symmetric spaces. We discuss vanishing and non-vanishing of Pontrjagin numbers and Euler characteristics for these locally symmetric spaces. We also establish vanishing results for Stiefel-Whitney numbers of (finite covers of) the Gromov-Thurston examples of negatively curved manifolds. We mention some geometric corollaries: the MinVol question, a lower bound for degrees of covers having tangential maps to the non-negatively curved duals, and estimates for the complexity of some representation…
This paper is on homotopy classification of maps of (n+1)-dimensional manifolds into the n-dimensional sphere. For a continuous map f of an (n+1)-manifold into the n-sphere define the degree deg f to be the class dual to f^*[S^n], where [S^n] is the fundamental class. We present a short and direct proof of the following specific case of the Pontryagin-Steenrod-Wu theorem: Theorem. Let M be a connected orientable closed smooth (n+1)-manifold, n>2. Then the map deg:π^n(M)\to H_1(M;Z) is 1-to-1 (i.e., bijective), if the product w_2(M) x r_2 H_2(M;Z) is nonzero, where r_2 is the mod2 reduction; 2-…
We prove a Theorem on homotheties between two given tangent sphere bundles $S_rM$ of a Riemannian manifold $M,g$ of $\dim\geq 3$, assuming different variable radius functions $r$ and weighted Sasaki metrics induced by the conformal class of $g$. New examples are shown of manifolds with constant positive or with constant negative scalar curvature, which are not Einstein. Recalling results on the associated almost complex structure $I^G$ and symplectic structure $ω^G$ on the manifold $TM$, generalizing the well-known structure of Sasaki by admitting weights and connections with torsion, we compu…
An immersion of a smooth $n$-dimensional manifold $M \to \mathbb{R}^q$ is called totally nonparallel if, for every distinct $x, y \in M$, the tangent spaces at $f(x)$ and $f(y)$ contain no parallel lines. Given a manifold $M$, we seek the minimum dimension $TN(M)$ such that there exists a totally nonparallel immersion $M \to \mathbb{R}^{TN(M)}$. In analogy with the totally skew embeddings studied by Ghomi and Tabachnikov, we find that totally nonparallel immersions are related to the generalized vector field problem, the immersion problem for real projective spaces, and nonsingular symmetric b…
Let $$M_{n}\stackrel{\mathbb R P^1}\to M_{n-1}\stackrel{\mathbb R P^1}\to\ldots\stackrel{\mathbb R P^1}\to M_{1}\stackrel{\mathbb R P^1}\to M_0 = \{ \bullet\} $$ be a sequence of real projective bundles such that $M_i\to M_{i-1}$, $i=1,2,\ldots,n$, is a projective bundle of a Whitney sum of a real line bundle $L_{i-1}$ and the trivial line bundle over $M_{i-1}$. The above sequence is called the real Bott tower and the top manifold $M_n$ is called the real Bott manifold. There are a few ways to decide whether there exists a Spin-structure on an oriented flat manifold $M^n$. An oriented flat man…
It is well-known that odd-dimensional manifolds have Euler characteristic zero. Furthemore orientable manifolds have an even Euler characteristic unless the dimension is a multiple of $4$. We prove here a generalisation of these statements: a $k$-orientable manifold (or more generally Poincaré complex) has even Euler characteristic unless the dimension is a multiple of $2^{k+1}$, where we call a manifold $k$-orientable if the $i^{th}$ Stiefel-Whitney class vanishes for all $0<i< 2^k$ ($k\geq 0$). More generally, we show that for a $k$-orientable manifold the Wu classes $v_l$ vanish for all $l$…
