Related papers: Manifold classification from the descriptive viewp…

This is a draft of a book submitted for publication by the AMS. Its theme is the remarkable interplay, accelerating in the last few decades, between topology and the theory of orderable groups, with applications in both directions. It…

In this paper, we define a relative Morse complex for manifold with boundary using the handlebody decomposition of the manifold. We prove that the homology of the relative Morse complex is isomorphic to the relative singular homology.…

We consider generalizations of symplectic manifolds called n-plectic manifolds. A manifold is n-plectic if it is equipped with a closed, nondegenerate form of degree n+1. We show that higher structures arise on these manifolds which can be…

In this paper, we analyze the complexity of topological conjugacy of pointed Cantor minimal systems from the point of view of descriptive set theory. We prove that the topological conjugacy relation on pointed Cantor minimal systems is…

Motivated by a question of Rubel, we consider the problem of characterizing which noncompact hypersurfaces in $\RR^n$ can be regular level sets of a harmonic function modulo a $C^\infty$ diffeomorphism, as well as certain generalizations to…

This self-contained paper is part of a series \cite{FF2,FF3} on actions by diffeomorphisms of infinite groups on compact manifolds. The two main results presented here are: 1) Any homomorphism of (almost any) mapping class group or…

We study lattices in non-positively curved metric spaces. Borel density is established in that setting as well as a form of Mostow rigidity. A converse to the flat torus theorem is provided. Geometric arithmeticity results are obtained…

Closed oriented 4-manifolds with the same geometrically 2-dimensional fundamental group (satisfying certain properties) are classified up to $s$-cobordism by their $w_2$-type, equivariant intersection form and the Kirby-Siebenmann…

We consider the problem of determining the complexity of the uniform homeomorphism relation between separable Banach spaces in the Borel reducibility hierarchy of analytic equivalence relations. We prove that the complete $K_{\sigma}$…

We prove a result analogous to Reeb's theorem in the context of Morse-Bott functions: if a closed, smooth manifold $M$ admits a Morse-Bott function having two critical submanifolds $S^k$ and $S^l$ ($k \neq l$), then $M$ has dimension…

The class of self-similar 2-manifolds consists of manifolds exhibiting a type of homogeneity akin to the 2-sphere and the Cantor set, and includes both the 2-sphere and the 2-sphere with a Cantor set removed. This chapter aims to provide a…

We calculate the rational cohomology of the classifying space of the diffeomorphism group of the manifolds $U_{g,1}^n:= \#^g(S^n \times S^{n+1})\setminus \mathrm{int}{D^{2n+1}}$, for large $g$ and $n$, up to approximately degree $n$. The…

We find conditions which ensure that the topological complexity of a closed manifold $M$ with abelian fundamental group is nonmaximal, and see through examples that our conditions are sharp. This generalizes results of Costa and Farber on…

We classify compact 2-connected homogeneous spaces with the same rational cohomology as a product of spheres. This classification relies on spectral sequences, homotopy theory, and representation theory. We then apply this classification to…

We classify homomorphisms from mapping class groups by using finite subgroups. First, we give a new proof of a result of Aramayona--Souto that homomorphisms between mapping class groups of closed surfaces are trivial for a range of genera.…

We classify topological $4$-manifolds with boundary and fundamental group $\mathbb{Z}$, under some assumptions on the boundary. We apply this to classify surfaces in simply-connected $4$-manifolds with $S^3$ boundary, where the fundamental…

We prove:(1) the existence, for every integer n > 3, of a noncompact smooth n-dimensional topological manifold whose diffeomorphism group contains an isomorphic copy of every finitely presented group; (2) a finiteness theorem on finite…

We show that the poset of non-trivial partitions of 1,2,...,n has a fundamental homology class with coefficients in a Lie superalgebra. Homological duality then rapidly yields a range of known results concerning the integral representations…

This paper has 3 principal goals: (1) to survey what is know about mapping class and Torelli groups of simply connected compact Kaehler manifolds, (2) supplement these results, and (3) present a list of questions and open problems to…

We present new explicit decompositions of manifolds via so-called fold maps into lower dimensional spaces. Fold maps form a nice class of so-called generic maps, generalizing Morse functions naturally. To understand the topologies and the…