On the signature of four-manifolds with universal covering spin (Q1318042)

Forty years ago Rokhlin showed for a closed smooth 4-dimensional spin manifold \(M\) that its signature is divisible by 16. This paper deals with the analogous question in the case, where only the universal covering \(\widetilde M\) is required to carry a spin-structure. In this situation the second Stiefel-Whitney class \(w_ 2\) can be considered as an element \(w \in H^ 2 (\pi;Z/2)\), \(\pi\) the fundamental group. It turns out that the values of the signature depend only on \((\pi,w)\). For different constellations of \((\pi,w)\) this ideal is computed. For instance for \(\pi=Z/2 \times Z/2\) the ideal is 16, if \(w=0\), the ideal is 4, if \(w=x^ 2_ 1+x_ 1 x_ 2+x^ 2_ 2\), where \(x_ i\) are the standard generators, and the ideal is 8 else. There exist also constellations where the ideal is 2 or 1. One of the interesting aspects of Rokhlin's Theorem is the difference of the ideal for spin manifolds in the smooth and topological category. It turns out that for \(w \neq 0\) there is not difference.