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 terms of spectral properties of operator invariants of a graph-manifold.
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.
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.
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.
In this paper we show that every three-dimensional closed hyperbolic manifold admits no locally geometric $1$-parameter family of closed minimal surfaces.
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.
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 $E, D$.…
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.
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 generalize Bonahon's characterization of geometrically infinite torsion-free discrete subgroups of PSL(2, $\mathbb{C}$) to geometrically infinite discrete isometry subgroups in the case of rank 1 symmetric spaces, and, under the assumption of bounded torsion, to the case of negatively pinched Hadamard manifolds. Every such geometrically infinite isometry subgroup $Γ$ has a set of nonconical limit points with cardinality of continuum.
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 $n$.
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…
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. …
We explicitly construct small triangulations for a number of well-known 3-dimensional manifolds and give a brief outline of some aspects of the underlying theory of 3-manifolds and its historical development.
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.
We show that the number of isometry classes of cusped hyperbolic $3$-manifolds that bound geometrically grows at least super-exponentially with their volume, both in the arithmetic and non-arithmetic settings.
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 consider aspects of the question "when is an orientable closed 4-manifold $Y$ dominated by another such manifold $X$", focusing on the cases when $X$ is geometric or fibres non-trivially over an orientable surface.
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 provide, for hyperbolic and flat 3-manifolds, obstructions to bounding hyperbolic 4-manifolds, thus resolving in the negative a question of Farrell and Zdravkovska.
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 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 describe the quasi-isometric classification of fundamental groups of irreducible non-geometric 3-manifolds which do not have "too many" arithmetic hyperbolic geometric components, thus completing the quasi-isometric classification of 3--manifold groups in all but a few exceptional cases.
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 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.
Adyan and Rabin showed that most properties of groups cannot be algorithmically recognized from a finite presentation alone. We prove that, if one is also given a solution to the word problem, then the class of fundamental groups of closed, geometric 3-manifolds is algorithmically recognizable. In our terminology, the class of geometric 3-manifold groups is `recursive modulo the word problem'.
In this note, we show that there exist cusped hyperbolic $3$-manifolds that embed geodesically, but cannot bound geometrically. Thus, being a geometric boundary is a non-trivial property for such manifolds. Our result complements the work by Long and Reid on geometric boundaries of compact hyperbolic $4$-manifolds, and by Kolpakov, Reid and Slavich on embedding arithmetic hyperbolic manifolds.
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 …
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).
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.
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…
Geometric torsions are torsions of acyclic complexes of vector spaces which consist of differentials of geometric quantities assigned to the elements of a manifold triangulation. We use geometric torsions to construct invariants for a manifold with a triangulated boundary. These invariants can be naturally united in a vector, and a change of the boundary triangulation corresponds to a linear transformation of this vector. Moreover, when two manifolds are glued by their common boundary, these vectors undergo scalar multiplication, i.e., they work according to M. Atiyah's axioms for a topologica…
