Related papers: Homotopy Inertia Groups and Tangential Structures
We construct smooth bundles with base and fiber products of two spheres whose total spaces have non-vanishing $\hat{A}$-genus. We then use these bundles to locate non-trivial rational homotopy groups of spaces of Riemannian metrics with…
Implementing an idea due to John Baez and James Dolan we define new invariants of Whitney stratified manifolds by considering the homotopy theory of smooth transversal maps. To each Whitney stratified manifold we assign transversal homotopy…
The first main result is a topological rigidity theorem for complete immersed hypersurfaces of spherical space forms which extends similar results due to do Carmo/Warner, Wang/Xia and Longa/Ripoll. Under certain sharp conditions on the…
Given a group $G$ and a class of manifolds $\CC$ (e.g. symplectic, contact, K\"ahler etc), it is an old problem to find a manifold $M_G \in \CC$ whose fundamental group is $G$. This article refines it: for a group $G$ and a positive integer…
We give necessary and sufficient conditions for a closed smooth 6-manifold N to be diffeomorphic to a product of a surface F and a simply connected 4-manifold M in terms of basic invariants like the fundamental group and cohomological data.…
We prove that, if M is a compact oriented manifold of dimension 4k+3, where k>0, such that pi_1(M) is not torsion-free, then there are infinitely many manifolds that are homotopic equivalent to M but not homeomorphic to it. To show the…
Any two homologous surfaces of the same genus embedded in a smooth 4-manifold X with simply-connected complements are shown to be smoothly isotopic in the connected sum of X and the product of a 2-sphere with itself, if the surfaces are…
We prove a homological stability theorem for moduli spaces of simply-connected manifolds of dimension $2n > 4$, with respect to forming connected sum with $S^n \times S^n$. This is analogous to Harer's stability theorem for the homology of…
Let G be a subgroup of finite index in SL(n,Z) for N > 4. Suppose G acts continuously on a manifold M, with fundamental group Z^n, preserving a measure that is positive on open sets. Further assume that the induced G action on H^1(M) is…
Let $M^{2n}$ be a closed smooth manifold homotopy equivalent to the complex projective space $\mathbb{C}P(n)$. The purpose of this paper is to show that when $n$ is even, the difference of the first Pontrjagin classes between $M^{2n}$ and…
Let $Y$ be a pointed space and let $\mathcal E(Y^r)$ be the group of based self-equivalences of $Y^r$, $r\geq 2$. For $Y$ a homotopy commutative $H$-group we construct a subgroup $\mathcal E_{\mathrm{Mat}}(Y^r)$ of $\mathcal E(Y^r)$ which…
We study finite group actions on smooth manifolds of the form $M\#\Sigma$, where $\Sigma$ is an exotic $n$-sphere and $M$ is a closed aspherical space form. We give a classification result for free actions of finite groups on $M\#\Sigma$…
We construct a compact PL 5-manifold $M$ (with boundary) which is homotopy equivalent to the wedge of eleven 2-spheres, $\vee^{}_{1 1}S^2$, which is "spineless", meaning $M$ is not the regular neighborhood of any 2-complex PL embedded in…
Let $M^d$ be a simply connected spin manifold of dimension $d \geq 5$ admitting Riemannian metrics of positive scalar curvature. Denote by $\mathcal{R}^+(M^d)$ the space of such metrics on $M^d$. We show that $\mathcal{R}^+(M^d)$ is…
A general method for the construction of smooth flat connections on 3-manifolds is introduced. The procedure is strictly connected with the deduction of the fundamental group of a manifold M by means of a Heegaard splitting presentation of…
We prove that all SYM theories that have a quantum modified moduli space $\m$ defined by a single constraint equation have trivial homotopy groups $\pi_j(\m)$ for $j=0,1,2,3$ and 4. This implies that none of these theories admit skyrmions…
The Cannon Conjecture for a torsionfree hyperbolic group G with boundary homeomorphic to S^2 says that G is the fundamental group of an aspherical closed 3-manifold M. It is known that then M is a hyperbolic 3-manifold. We prove the stable…
In this paper we generalize the notion of regular homotopy of immersions of a closed connected n-manifold into R^{2n-1} to locally generic mappings. The main result is that if n=2 then two mappings with singularities are regularly homotopic…
We show that the common basis complex of a free group of rank $n$ has the homotopy type of a wedge of spheres of dimension $2n-3$. This establishes an $\mathrm{Aut}(F_n)$-analogue of the connectivity conjecture that Rognes originally stated…
We classify, up to homeomorphism, all closed manifolds having the homotopy type of a connected sum of two copies of real projective n-space.