Involutions on odd-dimensional manifolds and the de Rham invariant (Q1090991)

Let \(M^{2n+1}\) be a closed oriented manifold, where \(M^{2n+1}\) possesses an orientation reversing involution if n is odd. Then, the torsion subgroup of \(H_ n(M; {\mathbb{Z}})\) is of the form \(A\oplus A\) or \(A\oplus A\oplus {\mathbb{Z}}_ 2\). The author then defines \(d(M)=0\) if Tor \(H_ n(M; {\mathbb{Z}})=A\oplus A\); \(d(M)=1\) if Tor \(H_ n(M; {\mathbb{Z}})=A\oplus A\oplus {\mathbb{Z}}_ 2\). This number, d(M), is the de Rham invariant for n even. The main result of the article (Theorem 4.2) is a formula relating d(M) to the Bredon classes of an involution. This formula is used to derive the following interesting results for an involution T on M: (a) If \(d(M^{2n+1})=1\) and T is orientation reversing if n is odd, then dim \(F\geq n\), where F denotes the fixed point set of T. (b) If T is orientation reversing, then \(\sum_{m=4k+2}\chi (F^ m)=\sum_{m=4k}\chi (F^ m)=d(M^{2n+1}),\) where \(F^ m\) denotes the m-dimensional component of F. (c) If M possesses an orientation-reversing involution with F orientable (F may be empty), then \(d(M)=0.\) The above results are analogous to classical theorems by P. E. Conner, E. E. Floyd and P. A. Smith, where the place of the (mod 2) Euler characteristic is taken here by d(M).