The integral homology of orientable Seifert manifolds (Q1868896)

A finite presentation of the fundamental group of a closed orientable Seifert manifold \(M\) was given in a celebrated paper of \textit{H. Seifert} [Acta Math. 60, 147-238 (1932; Zbl 0006.08304)]. The integral homology group \(H_1(M)\) is the abelianization of \(\pi_1(M)\) but, in general, it cannot be determined explicitly by a routine calculation. The aim of the present paper is to compute \(H_1(M)\) determining a set of generators of it. This calculation gives a presentation for the \(p\)-torsion of \(H_1(M)\) for any prime \(p\). Since Seifert manifolds have dimension 3, \(H_1(M)\) determines \(H_*(M; A)\) and \(H^*(M; A)\) for any abelian group \(A\). The complete details are given when \(A\) is \(\mathbb{Z}\) or \(\mathbb{Z}/\langle p\rangle^s\). Following \textit{R. Mosher} and \textit{M. Tangora} [Cohomology operations and applications in homotopy theory, Harper and Row, New York (1968; Zbl 0153.53302)], a \(p\)-component of a finitely geneated abelian group \(G\) (where \(p\) is a prime number) is the quotient group \(G/H\) where \(H\) is the subgroup of all elements of \(G\) having finite order prime to \(p\). The main result of the paper describes \(H_1(M)\) in terms of its \(p\)-components and gives the generators and relations, for any orientable Seifert manifold \(M\). The motivation for finding a presentation for \(H_1(M)\) comes from the calculation of the linking form and the partition functions of the Dijkgraaf-Witten topological quantum field theories.