Related papers: A Physicist's Visit to Exotic Spheres
By applying an inverse Kaluza-Klein procedure, we provide explicit coordinate expressions for Riemannian metrics on two homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic spheres in seven dimensions. We identify Milnor's bundles, among which ten out of the…
Here we generalize the Gromoll-Meyer construction of an exotic 7-sphere by producing geometric models of exotic 8, 10 and Kervaire spheres as quotients of sphere bundles over spheres by free isometric actions. We give a geometric…
We study the geometry of the Gromoll-Meyer sphere, one of Milnor's exotic $7$-spheres. We focus on a Kaluza-Klein Ansatz, with a round $S^4$ as base space, unit $S^3$ as fibre, and $k=1,2$ $SU(2)$ instantons as gauge fields, where all…
Since the advent of new pairwise non-diffeomorphic structures on smooth manifolds, it has been questioned whether two topologically identical manifolds could admit different geometries. Not surprisingly, physicists have wondered whether a…
We construct a new infinite family of models of exotic 7-spheres. These models are direct generalizations of the Gromoll-Meyer sphere. From their symmetries, geodesics and submanifolds half of them are closer to the standard 7-sphere than…
A metric with positive sectional curvature on the Gromoll-Meyer exotic 7-sphere is constructed explicitly. The proof relies on a 2-parameter family of left invariant metrics on Sp(2) and a one-parameter family of conformal deformations via…
The first part of the paper is to improve the fundamental theory of isoparametric functions on general Riemannian manifolds. Next we focus our attention on exotic spheres, especially on "exotic" 4-spheres (if exist) and the Gromoll-Meyer…
Recent discoveries in differential topology are reviewed in light of their possible implications for spacetime models and related subjects in theoretical physics. Although not often noted, a particular smoothness (differentiability)…
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…
Among a family of 2-parameter left invariant metrics on Sp(2), we determine which have nonnegative sectional curvatures and which are Einstein. On the quotiente $\widetilde{N}^{11}=(Sp(2)\times S^4)/S^3$, we construct a homogeneous…
We review recent developments in differential topology with special concern for their possible significance to physical theories, especially general relativity. In particular we are concerned here with the discovery of the existence of…
A given topological manifold can sometimes be endowed with inequivalent differential structures. Physically this means that what is meant by a differentiable function (smooth) is simply different for observers using inequivalent…
We studied isometric stochastic flows of a Stratonovich stochastic differential equation on spheres, i.e. on the standard sphere and Gromoll-Meyer exotic sphere. The standard sphere $S^7_s$ can be constructed as the quotient manifold…
It is well known that in four or more dimensions, there exist exotic manifolds; manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to each other. More precisely, exotic manifolds are the same topological manifold but have inequivalent…
We consider sphere bundles P and P' of totally null planes of maximal dimension and opposite self-duality over a 4-dimensional manifold equipped with a Weyl or Riemannian geometry. The fibre product PP' of P and P' is found to be…
Natural metric structures on the tangent bundle and tangent sphere bundles $S_rM$ of a Riemannian manifold $M$ with radius function $r$ enclose many important unsolved problems. Admitting metric connections on $M$ with torsion, we deduce…
We show Riemannian geometry could be studied by identifying the tangent bundle of a Riemannian manifold $\mathcal{M}$ with a subbundle of the trivial bundle $\mathcal{M} \times \mathcal{E}$, obtained by embedding $\mathcal{M}$…
We suggest that exotic sphere fibrations can be mapped to band topologies in condensed matter systems. These fibrations can correspond to geometric phases of two double bands or state vector bases with second Chern numbers m+n and -n…
We construct a co-dimension $3$ completely non-holonomic sub-bundle on the Gromoll-Meyer exotic $7$ sphere based on its realization as a base space of a Sp(2)-principal bundle with the structure group Sp(1). The same method is valid for…
We provide an approach to study exotic phenomena in relatively small 4-manifolds that captures many different exotic behaviors under one umbrella. These phenomena include exotic smooth structures on 4-manifolds with $b_2=1$, examples of…