Four-manifold systoles and surjectivity of period map (Q1422175)

For a Riemannian surface, its systole is the least conformal length of nonseparating loops, which is also equal to the minimal conformal length of nonzero elements in the first integral cohomology. This can be generalized to define the conformal \(p\)-systole of a \(2p\)-dimensional manifold as the minimal norm of nonzero elements in the integral \(p\)-cohomology. Note that in the middle dimension, the norm of \(p\)-forms is conformally invariant. In this paper, under the assumption that the period map is surjective, polynomial bounds on the 2-conformal systole of 4-manifolds with indefinite intersection form are given, in contrast to the logarithmetic bounds for Riemannian surfaces obtained by P. Buser and P. Sarnak.