Integral foliated simplicial volume and \(S^1\)-actions (Q2126318)

In this paper, the author proves that the integral foliated simplicial volume of a smooth manifold admitting certain \(S^1\)-actions vanishes. The integral foliated simplicial volume is a generalization of the classical simplicial volume of oriented compact manifolds. For an oriented compact connected \(m\)-manifold \(M\) (possibly with boundary) with \(\Gamma=\pi_1(M)\) and a measure preserving action \(\alpha: \Gamma \curvearrowright (Z,\mu)\) on a Borel probability space, the parametrized \(l^1\)-norm \(|M,\partial M|^{\alpha}\) is the infimum of \(l^1\)-norms of cycles in the twisted chain group \[C_m(M, \partial M;\alpha)=L^{\infty}(Z,\mu;\mathbb{Z})\otimes_{\mathbb{Z}\Gamma}C_n(\tilde{M},\partial \tilde{M};\mathbb{Z})\] that represents the fundamental class \([M,\partial M]^{\alpha}\in H_*(M,\partial M; \alpha)\). The (relative) integral foliated simplicial volume \(|M,\partial M|\) of \(M\) is the infimum of \(|M,\partial M|^{\alpha}\) when \(\alpha\) runs over all measure preserving \(\Gamma\)-actions on Borel probability spaces. The main result of this paper (Theorem 1.1) states that: for any oriented compact smooth manifold \(M\) that admits a smooth \(S^1\)-action without fixed points such that every orbit is \(\pi_1\)-injective, \(|M,\partial M|=0\) holds. Moreover, for any essentially free measure preserving action \(\alpha:\pi_1(M)\curvearrowright (Z,\mu)\) on a Borel probability space, \(|M,\partial M|^{\alpha}=0\) holds. The proof of Theorem 1.1 relies on the so-called \emph{hollowing construction} of \textit{K. Yano}, given in [J. Fac. Sci., Univ. Tokyo, Sect. I A 29, 493--501 (1982; Zbl 0518.57017)], which is used to prove the vanishing of simplicial volume of smooth manifolds with nontrivial smooth \(S^1\)-action. Roughly speaking, the hollowing construction gives a non-proper map \(p:M_{n-2}\to M\) between \(m\)-dim manifolds such that \(M_{n-2}\) splits as \(N\times S^1\) and the map \(p\) is nice. The \(S^1\)-product structure of \(M_{n-2}\) gives a representative of \([M_{n-2},\partial M_{n-2}]^{\alpha\circ p_*}\) with small \(l^1\)-norm. Although \(p\) does not push-forward \([M_{n-2},\partial M_{n-2}]^{\alpha \circ p_*}\) to the fundamental class \([M,\partial M]^{\alpha}\), it can be adjusted by filling to a fundamental cycle of \(M\) without changing the norm too much.