Surgery with finite fundamental group. II: The oozing conjecture (Q1183114): Difference between revisions

[Part I is reviewed above (see Zbl 0749.57009).] In this paper, characteristic class formulae for surgery problems over any compact oriented closed manifold with finite fundamental group are obtained. This essentially evaluates the boundary maps in the surgery exact sequences. These formulae involve the \(L\)-genus of \(M\), pullbacks of classes \(K_{4i}\) and \(k_{4i+2}\) in \(H^*(G/TOP)\), and characteristic classes of the universal covering of \(M\), coming from \(H^*(B_{\pi_ 1(M)})\). It turns out that only classes in the first three of these groups, \(*=1\), 2, and 3, are needed. This can be interpreted as saying that only codimension 1, 2, and 3 submanifolds are needed to determine the surgery obstruction. In this form, the result was originally conjectured around 1970 and has become known as the oozing conjecture. Somewhat more explicitly, it says that the formula for the product with the Kervaire obstruction has the form \(\langle V^ 2f^*(\kappa_ *),[M]\rangle\), where \(\kappa=1+\kappa_ 1+\kappa_ 2+\kappa_ 3\), with \(\kappa_ i\in H^ i(B_{\pi_ 1(M)}:L^ h_{i+2}(\mathbb{Z}_{\pi_ 1}(M))\otimes \mathbb{Z}/2\).