On degrees of maps between Grassmannians (Q1370325)

By taking a close look at the cohomology algebras of Grassmannians the authors show that in many cases a map of oriented Grassmannians of the same dimension must have vanishing degree. More precisely, denote by \(\widetilde{G}_{n,k}\) the Grassmann manifold of oriented \(k\)-dimensional subspaces of \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\). Let \(2\leq l\leq m/2\), \(1\leq k\leq n/2\) and \((n,k)\not=(m,l)\). If \(h:\widetilde{G}_{n,k}\to\widetilde{G}_{m,l}\) is a map between Grassmannians of the same dimension then \(\deg h=0\). Similarly, if \(1\leq l<k\leq[n/2]\) and \(f:\mathbb{C} G_{m,l}\to\mathbb{C} G_{n,k}\) is a map between Grassmannians of the same dimension then \(\deg f=0\). The same holds if one replaces \(\mathbb{C}\) by \(\mathbb{H}\) where \(\mathbb{H} G_{n,k}\) denotes the manifold of \(k\)-dimensional left vector subspaces of \(\mathbb{H}^{n}\). The authors conjecture that in both cases the restriction \(1\leq l<k\leq[n/2]\) may be replaced by \(2\leq k<l\leq[m/2]\).