A Hochschild homology Euler characteristic for circle actions (Q1818738)

Given a finite \(S^1\text{-CW}\) complex \(X\), the authors define a degree one Hochschild homology class \(\widetilde \chi_{S^1}(X)\in HH_1 (\mathbb{Z} \pi_1 X)\), the \(S^1\)-Euler characteristic of \(X\). In particular, this applies to any smooth circle action on a compact smooth manifold. This class can either be obtained geometrically from a Hochschild chain defined using one orbit from each cell, or it can be computed as a `trace' obtained from the Hochschild boundary operator and from a chain homotopy induced by viewing the given action as a homotopy. The homomorphic image of the characteristic in ordinary homology vanishes if \(X\) is a closed even-dimensional smooth \(S^1\)-manifold. A certain other homomorphic image of the characteristic vanishes if the given circle action extends to a torus action with finite isotropy. As an application, a formula is derived for the Euler class of the normal bundle of an \(S^1\) action without fixed points on a smooth closed oriented manifold; it features again one orbit from each cell. In addition, the characteristic is used for an extensive study of Seifert fibered spaces.