Related papers: A new proof of Milnor-Wood inequality

This note describes sharp Milnor--Wood inequalities for the Euler number of flat oriented vector bundles over closed Riemannian manifolds locally isometric to products of hyperbolic planes. One consequence is that such manifolds do not…

Let~$S^{n-1}\rightarrow E \rightarrow M^n$ be an oriented sphere bundle supporting an affine transverse foliation. We give an upper bound for the Euler number of the bundle. We also give a new and elementary proof of the following fact: if…

We prove that the norm of the Euler class E for flat vector bundles is $2^{-n}$ (in even dimension $n$, since it vanishes in odd dimension). This shows that the Sullivan--Smillie bound considered by Gromov and Ivanov--Turaev is sharp. We…

Given a cooriented branched surface $\mathcal B$ fully carrying a foliation $\mathcal F$, we use the dual graph of $\mathcal B$ to define a simplicial 1-cycle $\Gamma_m(\mathcal B)$ representing the Poincar\'e dual of the Euler class of…

Let $K$ be an arbitrary infinite field. The cohomology group $H^2(SL(2,K), H_2\,SL(2,K))$ contains the class of the universal central extension. When studying representations of fundamental groups of surfaces in $SL(2,K)$ it is useful to…

We define the Toledo invariant of a G-Higgs bundle on a Riemann surface, where G is a real semisimple group of Hermitian type, and we prove a Milnor-Wood type bound for this invariant when the bundle is semistable. We prove rigidity results…

When two smooth manifold bundles over the same base are fiberwise tangentially homeomorphic, the difference is measured by a homology class in the total space of the bundle. We call this the relative smooth structure class. Rationally and…

We consider closed manifolds that admit a metric locally isometric to a product of symmetric planes. For such manifolds, we prove that the Euler characteristic is an obstruction to the existence of flat structures, confirming an old…

Let $f\colon S\to B$ be a non-isotrivial fibred surface. We prove that the genus $g$, the rank $u_f$ of the unitary summand of the Hodge bundle $f_*\omega_f$ and the Clifford index $c_f$ satisfy the inequality $u_f \leq g - c_f$. Moreover,…

We classify the possible closures of leaves of the isoperiodic foliation (sometimes called absolute period foliation) defined on the Hodge bundle, i.e. the moduli space of abelian differentials over genus $g\geq 2$ smooth curves, and prove…

Classical results of Milnor, Wood, Mather, and Thurston produce flat connections in surprising places. The Milnor-Wood inequality is for circle bundles over surfaces, whereas the Mather-Thurston Theorem is about cobording general manifold…

For conic bundles on a smooth variety (over a field of characteristic $\ne 2$) which degenerate into pairs of distinct lines over geometric points of a smooth divisor, we prove a theorem which relates the Brauer class of the non-degenerate…

We study the Euler characteristic of the Milnor fibre of a hypersurface singularity. This invariant is given in terms of the Euler characteristic of a fibre in between the original singularity and its Milnor fibre and in terms of the Euler…

We introduce a notion of the twist of an isometry of the hyperbolic plane. This twist function is defined on the universal covering group of orientation-preserving isometries of the hyperbolic plane, at each point in the plane. We relate…

Let $f\colon S\to B$ a complex fibred surface with fibres of genus $g\geq 2$. Let $u_f$ be its unitary rank, i.e., the rank of the maximal unitary summand of the Hodge bundle $f_*\omega_f$. We prove many new slope inequalities involving…

We define a diffeology on the Milnor classifying space of a diffeological group $G$, constructed in a similar fashion to the topological version using an infinite join. Besides obtaining the expected classification theorem for smooth…

An old conjecture of Durfee 1978 bounds the ratio of two basic invariants of complex isolated complete intersection surface singularities: the Milnor number and the singularity (or geometric) genus. We give a counterexample for the case of…

The Hodge bundle $\omega$ over a modular curve is a square-root of the canonical bundle twisted by the cuspidal divisor, or a theta characteristic, due to the Kodaira--Spencer isomorphism. We prove that, in most cases, a section of a theta…

We provide an intersection-theoretic formula for the Euler characteristic of the moduli space of smooth curves. This formula reads purely in terms of Hodge integrals and, as a corollary, the standard calculus of tautological classes gives a…

Given an open subset U of a projective curve Y and a smooth family f:V-->U of curves, with semi-stable reduction over Y, we show that for a sub variation of Hodge structures of rank >2 the Arakelov inequality must be strict. For families of…