Related papers: Finite group actions on Kervaire manifolds
In this note, we study rigid complex manifolds that are realized as quotients of a product of curves by a free action of a finite group. They serve as higher-dimensional analogues of Beauville surfaces. Using uniformization, we outline the…
For suitable finite groups G, we construct contractible 4-manifolds C with an effective G-action on $\partial C$ whose associated pairs (C,g) for all $g \in G$ are distinct smoothings of the pair $(C,\partial C)$. Indeed C embeds in a…
Consider the cyclic group C_2 of order two acting by complex-conjugation on the unit circle S^1. The main result is that a finitely dominated manifold W of dimension > 4 admits a cocompact, free, discontinuous action by the infinite…
There are two kinds of exotic spheres: bp spheres, which bound parallelizable manifolds, and non-bp spheres, or very exotic spheres, which do not. In the 1960s, W.-C. Hsiang showed that in each dimension where bp spheres exist, there is at…
We show that every rank two $p$-group acts freely and smoothly on a product of two spheres. This follows from a more general construction: given a smooth action of a finite group $G$ on a manifold $M$, we construct a smooth free action on…
The main result of this paper asserts that if a Seifert fibered 4-manifold has nonzero Seiberg-Witten invariant, the homotopy class of regular fibers has infinite order. This is a nontrivial obstruction to smooth circle actions; as…
We show that any topological, closed, oriented, non-spin $4$-manifold with fundamental group $\mathbb{Z}_{4k}$ and $\min(b_2^+, b_2^-)\geq 15$, has either none or infinitely many distinct smooth structures. Furthermore, we construct…
We consider finite groups which admit a faithful, smooth action on an acyclic manifold of dimension three, four or five (e.g. euclidean space). Our first main result states that a finite group acting on an acyclic 3- or 4-manifold is…
The main results of this paper describes a formula for the Seiberg-Witten invariant of a 4-manifold which admits a nontrivial free S^1-action. We use this theorem to produce a nonsymplectic 4-manifold with a free circle action whose orbit…
We explore transformation groups of manifolds of the form $M\times S^n$, where $M$ is an asymmetric manifold, i.e. a manifold which does not admit any non-trivial action of a finite group. In particular, we prove that for $n=2$ there exists…
In this paper, we compute the inertia groups of $(n-1)$-connected, smooth, closed, oriented $2n$-manifolds where $n \geq 3$. As a consequence, we complete the diffeomorphism classification of such manifolds, finishing a program initiated by…
The main result of this paper is a formula for calculating the Seiberg-Witten invariants of 4-manifolds with fixed-point free circle actions. This is done by showing under suitable conditions the existence of a diffeomorphism between the…
For the nontrivial action by the cyclic group $C_3$ of order $3$ on the graded polynomial ring $\mathbb{F}_2[a,b]$, we classify the $C_3$-invariant parameter ideals that are closed under Steenrod operations. The classification has…
There are known infinite families of Brieskorn homology 3-spheres which can be realized as boundaries of smooth contractible 4-manifolds. In this paper we show that free periodic actions on these Brieskorn spheres do not extend smoothly…
Let p be an odd prime and r be relatively prime to p. Let G be a finite p-group. Suppose an oriented 3-manifold M-tilde has a free G-action with orbit space M. We consider certain Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev SU(2) invariants w_r(M). We will…
It is a consequence of the classical Jordan bound for finite subgroups of linear groups that in each dimension n there are only finitely many finite simple groups which admit a faithful, linear action on the n-sphere. In the present paper…
A solution to the Kervaire invariant problem is presented. We introduce the concepts of abelian structure on skew-framed immersions, bicyclic structure on $\Z/2^{[3]}$--framed immersions, and quaternionic-cyclic structure on…
We consider closed manifolds, which occur as intersections of products of spheres of the same dimension with certain hyperplanes. Among those are the so called (big) polygon- and chain spaces. The equivariant cohomology with respect to…
It is proved that an arbitrary finite group acting locally linearly, homologically trivially, and pseudofreely on a closed, simply connected 4-manifold must in fact be cyclic and act semifreely, provided the second betti number of the…
We produce infinite families of exotic actions of finite cyclic groups on simply connected smooth 4-manifolds with nontrivial Seiberg-Witten invariants.