Quadratic functions and complex spin structures on three-manifolds (Q1771808)

The paper under review studies complex spin structures on closed, connected, oriented \(3\)-manifolds. To each closed, connected, oriented \(3\)-manifold \(M\) with complex spin structure \(\sigma\), the authors associate a quadratic function \(\phi_{M,\sigma}\colon H_2(M;\mathbb Q/\mathbb Z)\to\mathbb Q/\mathbb Z\) such that the associated bilinear form factors through the torsion linking pairing \(\text{Tors}H_1(M;\mathbb Z)\times \text{Tors}H_1(M;\mathbb Z)\to \mathbb Q/\mathbb Z\) via the Bockstein homomorphism \(H_2(M;\mathbb Q/\mathbb Z)\to\text{Tors}H_1(M;\mathbb Z)\) associated to the short exact sequence \(0\to \mathbb Z\to\mathbb Q\to\mathbb Q/\mathbb Z\to 0\). It is shown that this gives a natural one-to-one correspondence between the space of complex spin structures on \(M\) and the space of quadratic functions of the above-mentioned sort. The authors also study a \(\text{Spin}^c\)-refinement, called \(Y^c\)-surgery, of \textit{S. V. Matveev's} Borromean surgery [Mat. Zametki 42, No. 2, 268--278 (1987; Zbl 0634.57006)] on a \(3\)-manifold, which gives a \(\text{Spin}^c\)-refinement of the theory of finite type invariants of \(3\)-manifolds in the sense of Goussarov and the reviewer. The authors give a complete algebraic characterization (generalizing a result of Matveev) for two complex spin, closed, connected, oriented \(3\)-manifolds to be related by a sequence of \(Y^c\)-surgeries, using the quadratic function associated to the complex spin structure.