Moment maps and non-compact cobordisms (Q1281883)

In [Int. Math. Res. Not. 1996, No. 5, 221-234 (1996; Zbl 0863.57027)] \textit{V. Ginzburg, V. Guillemin} and \textit{Y. Karshon} use cobordism methods to study torus actions on symplectic manifolds resulting in short proofs of the Duistermaat-Heckman and the Jeffrey-Kirwan localization theorem concerning symplectic reduction. The paper under review generalizes these techniques to a natural larger class of actions and maps: For a smooth manifold \(M\) with a smooth action of a torus \(T\), a smooth map \(\Phi:M\to \mathfrak{t}^*\) that is \(T\)-invariant and with restrictions \(\Phi ^H:M^H\to \mathfrak{h}^*\) that are constant on the components of \(M^H\) is called an {abstract moment map} -- without mentioning any 2-form. The author studies triples \((M,\Phi ,c)\) with a smooth \(T\)-manifold \(M\) ({not necessarily compact}), a {proper} abstract moment map \(\Phi \) and an equivariant cohomology class \(c\). He shows, that such an object is properly cobordant to its restriction to the normal bundle of its fixed point set. He applies this result to obtain generalizations of the Jeffrey-Kirwan formula mentioned above and of the Guillemin-Lerman-Sternberg formula for the Duistermaat-Heckman measure (allowing non-compact manifolds with possibly infinitely many components in the fixed-point set). The crucial observations are again: Cobordism commutes with reduction. The integral of a reduced class is a cobordism invariant.