Related papers: Homotopy Inertia Groups and Tangential Structures

The homology groups of the automorphism group of a free group are known to stabilize as the number of generators of the free group goes to infinity, and this paper relativizes this result to a family of groups that can be defined in terms…

We survey several mathematical developments in the holonomy approach to gauge theory. A cornerstone of this approach is the introduction of group structures on spaces of based loops on a smooth manifold, relying on certain homotopy…

For $n\geq 2$ we consider $(n-1)$-connected closed manifolds of dimension at most $(3n-2)$. We prove that away from a finite set of primes, the $p$-local homotopy groups of $M$ are determined by the dimension of the space of indecomposable…

We construct examples of nonresolvable generalized $n$-manifolds, $n\geq 6$, with arbitrary resolution obstruction, homotopy equivalent to any simply connected, closed $n$-manifold. We further investigate the structure of generalized…

Given a finite quandle, we introduce a quandle homotopy invariant of knotted surfaces in the 4-sphere, modifying that of classical links. This invariant is valued in the third homotopy group of the quandle space, and is universal among the…

For each positive integer $n$, we give a geometric description of the stably trivial elements of the group $\pi_n U_n/O_n$. In particular, we show that all such elements admit representatives whose tangencies with respect to a fixed…

Let $X$ be a closed, simply-connected, smooth, spin 4-manifold whose intersection form is isomorphic to $n(-E_8)\bigoplus mH$, where $H$ is the hyperbolic form. In this paper, we prove that for $n$ such that $n\equiv 2 ~{\rm mod} ~4$, there…

Let $M$ be a compact $4$-manifold and let $S$ and $T$ be embedded $2$-spheres in $M$, both with trivial normal bundle. We write $M_S$ and $M_T$ for the $4$-manifolds obtained by the Gluck twist operation on $M$ along $S$ and $T$…

We consider locally symmetric manifolds with a fixed universal covering, and construct for each such manifold M a simplicial complex R whose size is proportional to the volume of M. When M is non-compact, R is homotopically equivalent to M,…

Let $S$ be a complete flat surface, such as the Euclidean plane. We determine the homeomorphism class of the space of all curves on $S$ which start and end at given points in given directions and whose curvatures are constrained to lie in a…

Let C_n(M) be the configuration space of n distinct ordered points in M. We prove that if M is any connected orientable manifold (closed or open), the homology groups H_i(C_n(M); Q) are representation stable in the sense of [Church-Farb].…

Let $M^n$, $n \in \{4,5,6\}$, be a compact, simply connected $n$-manifold which admits some Riemannian metric with non-negative curvature and an isometry group of maximal possible rank. Then any smooth, effective action on $M^n$ by a torus…

We show the problem of counting homomorphisms from the fundamental group of a homology $3$-sphere $M$ to a finite, non-abelian simple group $G$ is #P-complete, in the case that $G$ is fixed and $M$ is the computational input. Similarly,…

We study the inertia stack of [M_{0,n}/S_n], the quotient stack of the moduli space of smooth genus 0 curves with n marked points via the action of the symmetric group S_n. Then we see how from this analysis we can obtain a description of…

Suppose M is a non-compact connected n-manifold without boundary, DD(M) is the group of C^\infty-diffeomorphisms of M endowed with the Whitney C^\infty-topology and DD_0(M) is the identity connected component of DD(M), which is an open…

We compute the mod 2 homology of spin mapping class groups in the stable range. In earlier work we computed the stable mod p homology of the oriented mapping class group, and the methods and results here are very similar. The forgetful map…

The homotopy theory of gauge groups has received considerable attention in recent decades. In this work, we study the homotopy theory of gauge groups over some high dimensional manifolds. To be more specific, we study gauge groups of…

Let M be a smooth connected compact surface, P be either the real line R^1 or the circle S^1. For a subset X of M denote by D(M,X) the group of diffeomorphisms of M fixed on X. In this note we consider a special class F of smooth maps…

This paper studies the set of finite groups appearing as $\pi_1(M)/\pi_1(M)^{(n)}$, where $M$ is a closed, orientable 3-manifold and $\pi_1(M)^{(n)}$ denotes the $n$-th term of the derived series of $\pi_1(M)$. Our main result is that if…

We prove that any quasitoric manifold $M^{2n}$ admits a $T^n$-invariant almost complex structure if and only if $M$ admits a positive omniorientation. In particular, we show that all obstructions to existence of $T^n$-invariant almost…