Group structures on some families of 6-manifolds (Q2344143)

The author has previously published two extensive articles on simply connected 6-manifolds: (1) ``Closed Simply Connected 6-manifolds: the Proofs of Classification Theorems'', [St. Petersbg. Math. J. 12, No. 4, 605--680 (2001); translation from Algebra Anal. 12, No. 4, 126--230 (2001; Zbl 1168.57312)] and (2) ``A decomposition Theorem for Simply Connected 6-Manifolds'', [Zap. Nauchn. Semin. Leningr. Otd. Mat. Inst. Steklova 36, 40--49 (1973; Zbl 0359.57021)]. From these works the author deduced that every set of simply connected closed smooth 6-manifolds with fixed homology and fixed 2-dimensional Stiefel-Whitney class, being considered up to orientation preserving diffeomorphism, has an abelian group structure. In the present paper the author considers several ways to define this group structure and, moreover, an effective presentation of these groups is given. Let \(\mathcal{M}\) denote the set of oriented diffeomorphism classes of simply connected closed oriented smooth 6-manifolds. The notation \(X\in \mathcal{M}\) means that \(X\) is a simply connected closed smooth 6-manifold with given orientation. Let \(G\) be a finitely generated abelian group, and \(w:G\rightarrow \mathbb{Z}/2\) a homomorphism. If \(X\) is a simply connected manifold and \(\varphi:H_2(X)\rightarrow G\) is an isomorphism satisfying \(w\circ \varphi=w_2(X)\), the 2-dimensional Stiefel-Whitney class, then \((X,\varphi)\) is called a \((G,w)\)-\textit{manifold}. Two \((G,w)\)-manifolds \((X,\varphi)\) and \((X',\varphi')\) are diffeomorphic if there exists a diffeomorphism \(f:X\rightarrow X'\) with \(\varphi'\circ f_{\ast}=\varphi\). Then \(\mathcal{M}(G,w)\) denotes the set of oriented diffeomorphism classes of \((G,w)\)-manifolds \((X,\varphi)\) with \(X\in \mathcal{M}\). \(\mathcal{M}_r(G,w)\) denotes the subset of \(\mathcal{M}(G,w)\) determined by the condition that the 3-dimensional Betti number \(b_3(X)=2r\), \(r=0,1,...\). Then \(\mathcal{M}(G,w)=\bigcup ^{\infty}_{r=0}\mathcal{M}_r(G,w)\). The connected sum \(X\mapsto X \# S^3\times S^3\) may be considered as an action of the monoid \(\mathbb{N}=0,1,...\) on \(\mathcal{M}(G,w)\), mapping each \(\mathcal{M}_r(G,w)\) to \(\mathcal{M}_{r+1}(G,w)\). The quotient set \(\mathcal{M}(G,w)/\mathbb{N}\) is denoted by \(\widetilde{\mathcal{M}}(G,w)\) and its elements are called (classes of) \textit{stably diffeomorphic} \((G,w)\)-manifolds. And by Theorem 1.11 of (1) , each set \(\mathcal{M}(G,w)\) has a natural abelian structure group. Then a direct construction for the group operation on \(\mathcal{M}(G,w)\) is given and the cases \(G\) a free group and \(G=\mathbb{Z}^s\) are detailed. Regarding the calculation of the groups \(\widetilde{\mathcal{M}}(G,w)\) the author starts from an isomorphism determined in (1), \(\widetilde{\mathcal{M}}(G,w)\approx 3G\oplus H_6(G,2)\), for \(Tors_2 G=0\), where \(3G\) is the subgroup of \(G\) consisting of elements divisible by 3, and \(H_6(G,2)\) is the Eilenberg-MacLane group (the 6-dimensional homology group of \(K(G,2)\)). Also from (1) is mentioned the case when 2-torsion is present. In this case the group \(\widetilde{\mathcal{M}}(G,w)\) is a subgroup of \((G\oplus Z)/2^m\oplus G\oplus H_6(G,2)\), where \(2^m=\)inf\(\{ord(a)|a\in G,w(a)\neq 0\}\). In the present paper the author gives a simplified description of the groups \(\widetilde{\mathcal{M}}(G,w)\), ``derived from the statement of (1) by certain ``parametrizations'' (the derivation itself will be given elsewhere).'' ``A certain disadvantage of this description lies in its ``noninvariance''; on the other hand, it allows to calculate the group \(M(G,w)\) for any given \((G,w)\) rather easily.''