The Ochanine \(k\)-invariant is a Brown-Kervaire invariant (Q1925118)

For \((8m+2)\)-dimensional closed Spin-manifolds, one can define on the one side the finite set of Brown-Kervaire invariants, and on the other side Ochanine's invariant \(k\). Both are \(\mathbb{Z}/2\)-valued invariants of Spin-bordism, where the first are defined cohomologically as the Arf-invariant of certain quadratic refinements of the intersection form on \(H^{4m+1}(M;\mathbb{Z}/2)\), and the second can be defined as a \(KO\)-characteristic number which by the real family index theorem has an analytic interpretation as the mod 2 index of a twisted Dirac-operator. Ochanine showed that these invariants agree on the class of Spin-manifolds, for which all Stiefel-Whitney numbers containing an odd-dimensional Stiefel-Whitney class vanish. On the other hand, it is not difficult to construct two different Brown-Kervaire invariants in dimension 34. We show that Ochanine's invariant is in fact a Brown-Kervaire invariant; in particular, it vanishes if \(H^{4m+1} (M;\mathbb{Z}/2)=0\), and is an invariant of the Spin-homotopy type. This result is in analogy to the Hirzebruch signature theorem and can be considered as a \(\mathbb{Z}/2\)-valued cohomological index theorem for the above operator. The proof uses the integral elliptic homology of Kreck and Stolz (which in particular characterizes invariants with a multiplicativity property in \(\mathbb{H} P^2\)-bundles) and the theory of Kristensen about secondary cohomology operations (which gives a Cartan formula necessary for the computation of certain secondary operations in \(\mathbb{H} P^2\)-bundles).