English

Linking forms revisited

Geometric Topology 2018-02-28 v3

Abstract

We show that the Q/Z\mathbb{Q}/\mathbb{Z}-valued linking forms on rational homology spheres are (anti-) symmetric and we compute the linking form of a 3-dimensional rational homology sphere in terms of a Heegaard splitting. Both results have been known to a larger or lesser degree, but it is difficult to find rigorous down-to-earth proofs in the literature.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1708.03754,
  title  = {Linking forms revisited},
  author = {Anthony Conway and Stefan Friedl and Gerrit Herrmann},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.03754},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

15 pages, a sign error was fixed in the main theorem, final version, to appear in Pure and Applied Mathematics Quarterly

R2 v1 2026-06-22T21:13:03.945Z