Homology spheres as stationary sets of circle actions (Q912439): Difference between revisions

If \(\Sigma^ n\) is a smooth homology sphere, \(n>3\), then an old result of the Hsiang brothers asserts that by changing the smooth structure of \(\Sigma\) around some point one can make \(\Sigma\) the fixed set of a semifree \(S^ 1\) action on \(S^{n+2k}\) for every \(k>0\). The beautiful result of this paper is that for \(n=3\), \(\Sigma\) is the fixed set of such an action if and only if \(k=1\) and \(\Sigma\) bounds a contractible manifold, k is even, or k is odd, \(k\geq 3\), and the Rokhlin invariant vanishes. The author also discusses nonsemifree actions and how much one need change the smooth structure, but the results are not definitive. For nonsmooth actions a simple complete classification is given.