Related papers: Characteristic classes for flat Diff(M)-foliations
M-theory suggests the study of 11-dimensional space-times compactified on some 7-manifolds. From its intimate relation to superstrings, one possible class of such 7-manifolds are those that have Calabi-Yau threefolds as boundary. In this…
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…
Let $M$ be a smooth manifold and $\Gamma$ a group acting on $M$ by diffeomorphisms; which means that there is a group morphism $\rho:\Gamma\rightarrow \mathrm{Diff}(M)$ from $\Gamma$ to the group of diffeomorphisms of $M$. For any such…
The purpose of this article is to give an exposition of topological properties of spaces of homomorphisms from certain finitely generated discrete groups to Lie groups $G$, and to describe their connections to classical representation…
We consider mapping class groups \Gamma(M) = pi_0 Diff(M fix \partial M) of smooth compact simply connected oriented 4-manifolds M bounded by a collection of 3-spheres. We show that if M contains CP^2 (with either orientation) as a…
We compute the homotopy type of the moduli space of flat, unitary connections over aspherical surfaces, after stabilizing with respect to the rank of the underlying bundle. Over the orientable surface M^g, we show that this space has the…
The paper is devoted to the study of homotopy properties of stabilizers of smooth functions on oriented surfaces, i.e., groups of diffeomorphisms of surfaces preserving a given function. For some class of smooth functions which is a…
The density property for a Stein manifold X implies that the group of holomorphic diffeomorphisms of X is infinite-dimensional and, in a certain well-defined sense, as large as possible. We prove that if G is a complex semisimple Lie group…
We interpret heterotic M-theory in terms of h-cobordism, that is the eleven-manifold is a product of the ten-manifold times an interval is translated into a statement that the former is a cobordism of the latter which is a homtopy…
It is well-known that any isotopically connected diffeomorphism group $G$ of a manifold determines uniquely a singular foliation $\F_G$. A one-to-one correspondence between the class of singular foliations and a subclass of diffeomorphism…
Let M be a smooth connected compact surface, P be either the real line R^1 or the circle S^1, and f:M-->P be a smooth mapping. In a previous series of papers for the case when f is a Morse map the author calculated the homotopy types of…
For each integer q>0 there is a cohomology theory such that the zero cohomology group of a manifold N of dimension n is a certain group of cobordism classes of proper fold maps of manifolds of dimension n+q into N. We prove a splitting…
We present a way of constructing and deforming diffeomorphisms of manifolds endowed with a Lie group action. This is applied to the study of exotic diffeomorphisms and involutions of spheres and to the equivariant homotopy of Lie groups.
This is a survey article on the relationship between algebraic properties of diffeomorphism groups and homotopical properties of foliations, written for the Notices of the AMS.
We describe various equivalent ways of associating to an orbifold, or more generally a higher \'etale differentiable stack, a weak homotopy type. Some of these ways extend to arbitrary higher stacks on the site of smooth manifolds, and we…
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…
Families of smooth closed oriented 4-manifolds with a complex spin structure are studied by means of a family version of the Bauer--Furuta invariants in the context of parametrised stable homotopy theory, leading to a definition of…
Given a compact manifold M, we prove that any bracket generating and invariant under multiplication on smooth functions family of vector fields on M generates the connected component of unit of the group Diff(M).
This paper meticulously revisit and study the flux geometry of any compact oriented manifold $(M; W)$. We generalize several well-known factorization results, exhibit some orbital conditions for the study of flux geometry, give a proof of…
We develop the foundations of the deformation theory of compact complete affine space forms and affine crystallographic groups. Using methods from the theory of linear algebraic groups we show that these deformation spaces inherit an…