Fundamental group of self-dual four-manifolds with positive scalar curvature (Q1355252)

There are a variety of known implications on the topology of a smooth 4-manifold from the condition of having a metric satisfying positive curvature conditions, such as finiteness of the fundamental group, vanishing of the \(\widehat A\)-genus, and bounds on the Betti numbers. The main results of this paper concern constraints when a four-manifold \(M\) has either a metric whose curvature tensor is positive on complex isotropic two-planes or is a self-dual four-manifold with positive scalar curvature. In either case it is shown that if \(\pi_1(M)\) admits a nontrivial unitary representation, then there must be a surjective homomorphism from \(\pi_1(M)\) to the integers. This is shown by first establishing the vanishing of the second cohomology with twisted coefficients using the representation, and then applying Euler characteristic arguments to show that \(H^1(M,\mathbb{R})\neq 0\).