Geography of 4-manifolds with positive scalar curvature (Q2666924)

The authors discuss the geography problem of closed \(4\)-manifolds with positive scalar curvature for a group \(G\). It is the problem of determining the set \(\mathcal{G}(G)=\{(\chi(M),\sigma(M)) \mid \, M \in \mathcal{M}(G)\}\) where \(\chi\) and \(\sigma\) denote the Euler characteristic and the signature, and \(\mathcal{M}(G)\) is the class of closed orientable \(4\)-manifolds with positive scalar curvature with \(\pi_1(M) \approx G\). The problem is refined by partitioning \(\mathcal{M}(G)\) according to the \(w_2\)-type of \(M\), and by fixing the homology class \(f_\ast([M]) \in H_4(BG;\mathbb{Q})\), where the reference map \(f : M \to BG\) into the corresponding Eilenberg-MacLane space induces an isomorphism \(f_\ast : \pi_1(M) \to G\). The authors describe how work of Carr, Cecchini-Schick, Chodosh-Li, Gromov, Gromov-Lawson, Kirk-Livingston, Rosenberg, Schick and Schoen-Yau turns the geography problem above into a problem in group (co)homology and geometric group theory. Along the way they adress Gromov's observation that manifolds with positive scalar curvature tend to be inessential, that is \(f_\ast([M])=0\in H_n(BG)\).