First order invariants of generic immersions of manifolds of dimension nm-1 into manifolds of dimension n(m+1)-1, m,n>1 are constructed using the geometry of self-intersections. The range of one of these invariants is related to Bernoulli numbers.
As by-products some geometrically defined invariants of regular homotopy are found.
We classify all finite order invariants of immersions of a closed orientable surface into R^3, with values in any Abelian group. We show that they are all functions of order one invariants.
We classify all order one invariants of immersions of a closed orientable surface F into R^3, with values in an arbitrary Abelian group G. We show that for any F and G and any regular homotopy class A of immersions of F into R^3, the group of all order one invariants on A is isomorphic to G^\aleph_0 \oplus B \oplus B where G^\aleph_0 is the group of all functions from a set of cardinality \aleph_0 into G and B={x\in G : 2x=0}. Our work includes foundations for the study of finite order invariants of immersions of a closed orientable surface into R^3, analogous to chord diagrams and the 1-term …
We study finite order invariants of null-homotopic immersions of a closed orientable surface into an aspherical orientable 3-manifold. We give the foundational constructions, and classify all order one invariants.
Given a surface F, we are interested in Z/2 valued invariants of immersions of F into R^3, which are constant on each connected component of the complement of the quadruple point discriminant in Imm(F,R^3). Such invariants will be called ``q-invariants.'' Given a regular homotopy class A in Imm(F,R^3), we denote by V_n(A) the space of all q-invariants on A of order <= n. We show that if F is orientable, then for each regular homotopy class A and each n, dim(V_n(A) / V_{n-1}(A)) <= 1.
We give three formulas expressing the Smale invariant of an immersion f of a (4k-1)-sphere into (4k+1)-space. The terms of the formulas are geometric characteristics of any generic smooth map g of any oriented 4k-dimensional manifold, where g restricted to the boundary is an immersion regularly homotopic to f in (6k-1)-space. The formulas imply that if f and g are two non-regularly homotopic immersions of a (4k-1)-sphere into (4k+1)-space then they are also non-regularly homotopic as immersions into (6k-1)-space. Moreover, any generic homotopy in (6k-1)-space connecting f to g must have at lea…
It is shown that Schneiderman and Teichner's invariant $τ$ detects the example due to Kirk of a link map $f:S^2_+\cup S^2_-\to S^4$ for which the restricted map $f|S^2_+:S^2_+\to S^4-f(S^2_-)$ has vanishing Wall self-intersection but is not homotopic to an embedding.
The universal order 1 invariant f^U of immersions of a closed orientable surface into R^3, whose existence has been established in [N3], takes values in the group G_U = K \oplus Z/2 \oplus Z/2 where K is a countably generated free Abelian group. The projections of f^U to K and to the first and second Z/2 factors are denoted f^K, M, Q respectively. An explicit formula for the value of Q on any embedding has been given in [N2]. In the present work we give an explicit formula for the value of f^K on any immersion, and for the value of M on any embedding.
This paper is an overview of the idea of using contact geometry to construct invariants of immersions and embeddings. In particular, it discusses how to associate a contact manifold to any manifold and a Legendrian submanifold to an embedding or immersion. We then discuss recent work that creates invariants of immersions and embeddings using the Legendrian contact homology of the associated Legendrian submanifold.
We give an explicit calculation of the Wu invariants for immersions of a finite graph into the plane and classify all generic immersions of a graph into the plane up to regular homotopy by the Wu invariant. This result is a generalization of the fact that two plane curves are regularly homotopic if and only if they have the same rotation number.
Some properties of non-orientable 3-manifolds are shown. The semi-group of cobordism of immersions of surfaces in such manifolds is computed and proven actually to be a group. Explicit invariants are provided.
Let F be a closed non-orientable surface. We classify all finite order invariants of immersions of F into R^3, with values in any Abelian group. We show they are all functions of the universal order 1 invariant that we construct as T \oplus P \oplus Q where T is a Z valued invariant reflecting the number of triple points of the immersion, and P,Q are Z/2 valued invariants characterized by the property that for any regularly homotopic immersions i,j:F\to R^3, P(i)-P(j) \in Z/2 (respectively Q(i)-Q(j) \in Z/2) is the number mod 2 of tangency points (respectively quadruple points) occurring in an…
Regular homotopy classes of immersions of a 3-sphere in 5-space constitute an infinite cyclic group. The classes containing embeddings form a subgroup of index 24. The obstruction for a generic immersion to be regularly homotopic to an embedding is described in terms of geometric invariants of its self intersection. Geometric properties of self intersections are used to construct two invariants J and St of generic immersions which are analogous to Arnold's invariants of plane curves. We prove that J and St are independent first order invariants and that any first order invariant is a linear co…
A self-transverse immersion of the 2-sphere into 4-space with algebraic number of self intersection points equal to -n induces an immersion of the circle bundle over the 2-sphere of Euler class 2n into 4-space. Precomposing the circle bundle immersions with their universal covering maps, we get for n>0 immersions g_n of the 3-sphere into 4-space. In this note, we compute the Smale invariants of g_n. The computation is carried out by (partially) resolving the singularities of the natural singular map of the punctured complex projective plane which extends g_n. As an application, we determine th…
We give complete geometric invariants of cobordisms of fold maps with oriented singular set and cobordisms of even codimensional fold maps. These invariants are given in terms of cobordisms of stably framed manifolds and cobordisms of immersions with prescribed normal bundles defined by the author in his earlier works.
In this paper we define two regular homotopy invariants c and i for immersions of oriented 3-manifolds into R^5 in a geometric manner. The pair (c(f),i(f)) completely describes the regular homotopy class of the immersion f. The invariant i corresponds to the 3-dimensional obstruction that arises from Hirsch-Smale theory and extends the one defined in [10] for immersions with trivial normal bundle.
The cobordism group $N(M^n)$ of codimension-one immersions in the $n$-manifold $M^n$ has a natural filtration induced by any cellular decomposition. The problem addressed in this paper is the explicit computation of the graded group $gr^*N(M^n)$. We introduce some new invariants for immersions enlightening the Atiyah-Hirzebruch spectral sequence associated to $N(M)$, which are of combinatorial-geometric nature. Explicit computations are developed for $n\leq7$, and the group structure is also investigated for orientable 4-manifolds.
We classify immersions $f$ of $S^1$ in a $2$-manifold $M$ in terms of elementary invariants: the parity $S(f)$ of the number of double points of a self-transverse $C^1$-approximation of $f$, and the turning number $T(e\bar f)$ of the immersion $e\bar f:S^1\to M_f\subset\Bbb R^2$, where $\bar f$ is a lift of $f$ to the cover $M_f$ of $M$ corresponding to the subgroup $\left<[f]\right>\subsetπ_1(M)$. Namely, immersions $f,g:S^1\to M$ are regular homotopic if and only if they are homotopic, and if $M=S^2$ or $\Bbb R P^2$ or the normal bundle $ν(f)$ is non-orientable, then $S(f)=S(g)$, whereas if …
Recently V. Arnold introduced Strangeness and $J^{\pm}$ invariants of generic immersions of an oriented circle to $\R^2$. Here these invariants are generalized to the case of generic immersions of an oriented circle to an arbitrary surface $F$. We explicitly describe all the invariants satisfying axioms, which naturally generalize the axioms used by V. Arnold.
We obtain complete geometric invariants of cobordism classes of oriented simple fold maps of (n+1)-dimensional manifolds into an n-dimensional manifold N in terms of immersions with prescribed normal bundles. We compute that this cobordism group of simple fold maps is isomorphic to the direct sum of the (n-1)th stable homotopy group of spheres and the (n-1)th stable homotopy group of the infinite dimensional projective space. By using geometric invariants defined in the author's earlier works, we also describe the natural map of the simple fold cobordism group to the fold cobordism group by na…
We give geometric formulae which enable us to detect (completely in some cases) the regular homotopy class of an immersion with trivial normal bundle of a closed oriented 3-manifold into 5-space. These are analogues of the geometric formulae for the Smale invariants due to Ekholm and the second author. As a corollary, we show that two embeddings into 5-space of a closed oriented 3-manifold with no 2-torsion in the second cohomology are regularly homotopic if and only if they have Seifert surfaces with the same signature. We also show that there exist two embeddings $F_0$ and $F_8 : T^3 \hookri…
The notion of the geometrical $\Z/2 \oplus \Z/2$--control of self-intersection of a skew-framed immersion and the notion of the $\Z/2 \oplus \Z/4$-structure (the cyclic structure) on the self-intersection manifold of a $\D_4$-framed immersion are introduced. It is shown that a skew-framed immersion $f:M^{\frac{3n+q}{4}} \looparrowright \R^n$, $0 < q <<n$ (in the $\frac{3n}{4}+ε$-range) admits a geometrical $\Z/2 \oplus \Z/2$--control if the characteristic class of the skew-framing of this immersion admits a retraction of the order $q$, i.e. there exists a mapping $κ_0: M^{\frac{3n+q}{4}} \to \…
The geometric Hopf invariant of a stable map F is a stable Z_2-equivariant map h(F) such that the stable Z_2-equivariant homotopy class of h(F) is the primary obstruction to F being homotopic to an unstable map. In this paper we express the geometric Hopf invariant of the Umkehr map F of an immersion f:M^m \to N^n in terms of the double point set of f. We interpret the Smale-Hirsch-Haefliger regular homotopy classification of immersions f in the metastable dimension range 3m<2n-1 (when a generic f has no triple points) in terms of the geometric Hopf invariant.
This is a survey paper of author's results on cobordism groups and semigroups of fold maps and simple fold maps. The results include: establishing a relation between fold maps and immersions through geometrical invariants of cobordism classes of fold maps and simple fold maps in terms of immersions with prescribed normal bundles, detecting stable homotopy groups of spheres as direct summands of the cobordism semigroups of fold maps, Pontryagin-Thom type construction for -1 codimensional fold maps and estimations about the cobordism classes of manifolds which have fold maps into stably parallel…
We develop a geometric approach to stable homotopy groups of spheres in the spirit of the work of Pontrjagin and Rokhlin. A new proof of the Hopf Invariant One Theorem by J.F.Adams is obtained in all dimensions except 15 and 31. To prove that the stable Hopf invariant H: Π_n \to Z/2 vanishes for n>31, we apply methods of geometric topology. The Pontrjagin-Thom construction along with Hirsch's compression lemma identify every α\in Π_n with the framed bordism class of a framed immersion of a closed n-manifold into R^{n+k}, for any given k>0. Its self-intersection M projects to an immersion f: M …
In this paper we study the Haefliger invariant for long embeddings $\mathbb{R}^{4k-1}\hookrightarrow\mathbb{R}^{6k}$ in terms of the self-intersections of their projections to $\mathbb{R}^{6k-1}$, under the condition that the projection is a generic long immersion $\mathbb{R}^{4k-1}\looparrowright\mathbb{R}^{6k-1}$. We define the notion of "crossing changes" of the embeddings at the self-intersections and describe the change of the isotopy classes under crossing changes using the linking numbers of the double point sets in $\mathbb{R}^{4k-1}$. This formula is a higher-dimensional analogue to t…
We show that for a large class of contact 3-manifolds the groups of Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian and of framed knots are canonically isomorphic. As a corollary, we obtain that the group of finite order Arnold's $J^+$-type invariants of wave fronts on a surface $F$ is isomorphic to the group of Vassiliev invariants of framed knots in the spherical cotangent bundle $ST^*F$ of $F$. On the other hand we construct the first examples of contact manifolds for which Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian knots can distinguish Legendrian knots that realize isotopic framed knots and are homotopic as L…
A rigorous foundation for the contact homology of Legendrian submanifolds in a contact manifold of the form $P\times \R$ where $P$ is an exact symplectic manifold is established. The class of such contact manifolds include 1-jet spaces of smooth manifolds. As an application, contact homology is used to provide (smooth) isotopy invariants of submanifolds of $\R^n$ and, more generally, invariants of self transverse immersions into $\R^n$ up to restricted regular homotopies. When $n=3$, this application is the first step in extending and providing a contact geometric underpinning for the new knot…
The study of the Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian knots was started by D. Fuchs and S. Tabachnikov who showed that the groups of complex-valued Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian and of framed knots in the standard contact $R^3$ are canonically isomorphic. Recently we constructed the first examples where Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian and of framed knots are different, and Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian knots distinguish Legendrian knots that are isotopic as framed knots and homotopic as Legendrian immersions. This raised the question what information about Legendrian knots can be ca…
The real cohomology of the space of imbeddings of S^1 into R^n, n>3, is studied by using configuration space integrals. Nontrivial classes are explicitly constructed. As a by-product, we prove the nontriviality of certain cycles of imbeddings obtained by blowing up transversal double points in immersions. These cohomology classes generalize in a nontrivial way the Vassiliev knot invariants. Other nontrivial classes are constructed by considering the restriction of classes defined on the corresponding spaces of immersions.