Combinatorial spin structures on triangulated manifolds (Q1747126)

In the paper under review a framework for combinatorially representing spin and \(\mathrm{spin}^{c}\)-structures on triangulated manifolds in a manner suitable for computer implementation is built. The author understands a triangulation as a space constructed by gluing together simplices via affine-linear identifications of their boundary facets, demanding that the characteristic map of every simplex is an embedding when restricted to the interior of the simplex. In the first parts of the article the basic facts from obstruction theory are recalled. Then some group-theoretic preliminaries are described related to the geometry of simplices. Finally spin structures on triangulated manifolds are defined. According to the author, the novelty of the approach is that it relies heavily on the naturality of binary symmetric groups to avoid lengthy explicit constructions of smoothings of PL manifolds.