Affine simplices in Oka manifolds (Q845275): Difference between revisions

The deep insight of the great Japanese specialist of complex analysis Oka, now called Oka property, was elaborated in a modern aspect by the geometer \textit{M. Gromov} for holomorphic sections of elliptic bundles [J. Am. Math. Soc. 2, No.~4, 851--897 (1989; Zbl 0686.32012)]. The development of Gromov's initial idea began in 2002 and continues up to now. It is mostly due to F. Forstneric (in the period 2002--2009) and also to the author of this paper (2004, 2009). Let \(X\) be a complex manifold and \(A_n\) an affine \(n\)-simplex in \({\mathbb C}^{n+1}\) \[ A_n = \{ (t_0, t_1, \ldots , t_n) \in {\mathbb C}^{n+1}: t_0 + t_1 + \ldots + t_n = 1\}. \] At the bottom lies the following assertion: a holomorphic map \(A_n\to X\) is determined by its restriction to \(T_n\), \(T_n \subset A_n\), \(T_n\) being a standard \(n\)-simplex \[ T_n = \{ (t_0, t_1, \dots , t_n) \in {\mathbb R}^{n+1}: t_0 + t_1 + \dots + t_n = 1\}. \] The author hopefully notices that ``\dots the homotopy type of a complex manifold \(X\) satisfying the Oka property is captured by holomorphic maps from the affine space \({\mathbb C}^n\) into \(X\)''. He carefully develops a natural language -- that of simplicial sets, even on a categorical level, that allows him to present not only his main result about complex manifolds but also to obtain an interesting generalization in the category of smooth manifolds. The main result of the author says: Oka manifolds are homotopically elliptic. The exact technical description of the above written theorem is omitted here. An interesting remark of the author relates Oka manifolds, Stein manifolds and Kan complexes. This remark is based on a result of \textit{H. Grauert} about a real-analytically imbedded, into a Stein manifold \(S\), manifold \(M\), such that \(M\) has to be a strong deformation retract of \(S\) [Ann. Math. (2) 68, 460--472 (1958; Zbl 0108.07804)].