Degrees of maps between Grassmann manifolds (Q847011)

\textit{V. Ramani} and the first author [Proc. Indian Acad. Sci. Math. Sci. 107, 13--19 (1997; Zbl 0884.55002)] studied the possible degrees of maps between distinct oriented real Grassmann manifolds of the same dimension. The present authors complete this task for the case of complex and quaternionic Grassmann manifolds. Denote by \(\mathbb{F}\) either the complex numbers or the quaternions, and denote by \(\mathbb{FG}_{n,k}\) the \(\mathbb{F}\)-Grassmann manifold of \(k\)-dimensional left \(\mathbb{F}\)-vector subspaces of \(\mathbb{F}^n\). Using Schubert calculus for the cohomology ring of the Grassmannians and exploiting the fact that Grassmann manifolds are Kähler manifolds the authors prove the following results: {\parindent5mm \begin{itemize}\item[1)] Let \(d=\dim_{\mathbb{R}}\mathbb{F}\) and let \(f:\mathbb{FG}_{n,k}\to\mathbb{FG}_{m,j}\) be a map between Grassmann manifolds of the same dimension. Then for \(1\leq i\leq l\) there exist algebra generators \(u_i\in H^{di}(\mathbb{FG}_{m,l};\mathbb{Q})\) such that \(f^*(u_i)\in H^{di}(\mathbb{FG}_{{n,k}};\mathbb{Q})\) is determined up to sign by \(\deg f\) provided this degree is nonzero. \item[2)] Let \(2\leq l<k\) and let \(m,n\geq2k\) such that \(k(n-k)=l(m-l)\) and such that \((l^2-1))(k^2-1)((m-l)^2-1)((n-k)^2-1)\) is not a perfect square then \(\deg f=0\). In particular this happens for \(n\) sufficiently large. \item[3)] Assume that \(k(n-k)=l(m-l)\) and \(1\leq l\leq[m/2]\) and \(1\leq k\leq[n/2]\). If \(\deg f=\pm1\) for \(f:\mathbb{FG}_{n.l}\to\mathbb{FG}_{m,l}\) then \((m,l)=(n,k)\) and \(f\) is a homotopy equivalence. \end{itemize}}