Singular fibers of stable maps and signatures of 4-manifolds (Q2501686)

The authors study stable maps from a differentiable 4-manifold to a 3-manifold. Their main tool is the understanding of the possible fibers of such maps, their classification and hierarchy. The objective is to find relations between the numbers of certain singular fibers on one hand, and topological invariants of the manifolds on the other. The authors have already proved several results of this nature, but most of them concerned the Euler number of the source manifold, or only its parity. In the present paper they refine one of these formulae, i.e. they give an integral lift of a mod 2 result. The spectacular outcome is that the algebraic number of one of the singular fiber types (called III\(^8\)) coincides with the signature of the oriented source 4-manifold. The proof is a careful study how the singular fibers transform under cobordisms of maps, together with an involved calculation of one particular example.