Stably extendible tangent bundles over lens spaces (Q2463879)

Let \(p\) denote an odd prime and \(\tau_n(p)\) denote the tangent bundle over the \((2n+1)\)-dimensional standard lens space \(L^n(p)\). In this paper the authors study the stable extendibility of \(\tau_n(p)\). Let \(s(\tau_n(p))\) denote the largest integer \(m\) such that \(m \geq n\) and \(\tau_n(p)\) is stably extendible to \(L^m(p)\) (this means that there is a \((2n+1)\)-dimensional real vector bundle over \(L^m(p)\) whose restriction to \(L^n(p) \subset L^m(p)\) is stably equivalent to \(\tau_n(p)\)). The authors conjectured in their previous paper [Hiroshima Math. J. 36, 339--351 (2006; Zbl 1140.55011)] that \(s(\tau_n(p))=\infty\) for \(0 \leq n \leq p\), and \(s(\tau_n(p))=2n+1\) for \(n \geq p+1\) (where \(s(\tau_n(p))=\infty\) means that \(\tau_n(p)\) is stably extendible to \(L^m(p)\) for any \(m \geq n\)). The authors attempt here to solve this conjecture and actually prove the following theorems: (1) \(s(\tau_n(p))= 2n+1\) for \(n \geq p+1\). (2) \(s(\tau_n(p))=\infty\) for \(p-3 \leq n \leq p\), and \(s(\tau_2(p))=\infty\) if \(p \equiv \pm 1\bmod 12\). Moreover the authors prove the following theorem: (3) \(s(\tau_n(11))=\infty\) for \(n=4\) or 5, \(s(\tau_n(13))=\infty\) for \(5 \leq n \leq 7\), and \(s(\tau_2(17))=\infty\). The last two theorems come with an illustrative remark, respectively. For the sake of reference some known results are summarized into a theorem from the papers of \textit{T. Kobayashi, H. Maki} and \textit{T. Yoshida} [ibid. 5, 487--497 (1975; Zbl 0314.55028) and ibid. 29, 631--639 (1999; Zbl 0946.55010)], \textit{T. Kobayashi} and \textit{K. Komatsu} [ibid. 35, 403--412 (2005; Zbl 1096.55010)] and the authors [op. cit.]. According to this theorem it holds that \(s(\tau_n(p))=\infty\) for \(n=0, 1\) or 3 and \(s(\tau_2(p))=\infty\) for \(p=3, 5\) or 7. Surely then, as the authors note, theorem (3) may be regarded as an additional result to this one. When \(p-3 \leq n \leq p\) and \(p \geq 7\), one also finds from this theorem that \(\tau_n(p)\) is not extendible to \(L^{n+1}(p)\). But theorem (2) implies that this \(\tau_n(p)\) is stably extendible to \(L^m(p)\) for any \(m \geq n\). This exhibits that there is a major difference between extendibility and stable extendibility.