Mutants of compactified representations revisited (Q2398346)

Let \(T=({\mathbb{S}}^1)^{n+1}\) be a torus, where \(n\in\{1,2,4,8\}\). A mutant \(Z\) of a compactified representation, defined in [\textit{M. Franz} and \textit{V. Puppe}, Contemp. Math. 460, 87--98 (2008; Zbl 1154.55005)], is an example of a \((3n+1)\)-dimensional compact orientable \(T\)-manifold whose equivariant cohomology \(H^\ast_T(Z;{\mathbb{R}})\) is torsion-free over \(H^\ast(BT;{\mathbb{R}})\) but not free unless \(n=1\). In this paper the authors show that the mutants are equivariantly homeomorphic to intersections of real quadrics. In particular, they show that the mutants are equivariantly homeomorphic to connected sums of products of spheres. They also consider the real version of the mutant, which is a compact orientable smooth manifold \(\bar{Z}\) of dimension \(2n\) with a smooth action of \(\{ \pm 1\}^{n+1}\), and obtain the same type of results for \(\bar{Z}\).