Nonnegatively curved five-manifolds with non-abelian symmetry (Q280120)

The classification of isometric circle actions on positively curved five-manifolds is a difficult problem. The aim of this paper is to present a classification for compact simply-connected five-dimensional manifolds which admit a metric of nonnegative curvature with a connected non-abelian group acting by isometries. They are diffeomorphic to either \(S^5\), \(S^3\times S^2\), the nontrivial \(S^3\)-bundle over \(S^2\) or the Wu-manifold \(\mathrm{SU}(3)/\mathrm{SO}(3)\). Denote the quotient \(N^l_{m,n}:= (\mathrm{SU}(2)\times S^3)/S^l\). Then \(N^l_{m,n}\) is diffeomorphic to \(S^3\times S^2\) if \(m+n\) is even and diffeomorphic to \(S^3\widetilde\times S^2\) otherwise. The author proves the results: Theorem C: If the \(G\)-manifold \(M\) does not have singular orbits, then it is equivariantly diffeomorphic to either \(N^1_{0,0}\) or \(N^l_{m,n}\) for some choice of positive integers \(m\), \(n\) and \(l\). The \(\mathrm{SO}(3)\)-manifolds correspond to \(N^l_{m,n}\) with \(m\) and \(n\) even. Theorem D: If the \(G\)-manifold \(M\) has singular orbits, then \(M\) is equivariantly diffeomorphic to \(S^5\) with a linear action or: (a) \(G=\mathrm{SO}(3)\) and \(M\) is equivalent to either \(N^1_{0,2m}= S^3\times S^2\), connected sums of copies of the Wu-manifold and copies of the Brieskorn variety of type \((2,3,3,3)\), or connected sums of copies of \(S^3\times S^2\) with the linear action of \(\mathrm{SO}(3)\subset \mathrm{SO}(4)\) on the first factor; (b) \(G= \mathrm{SU}(2)\) and \(M\) is equivalent to either \(N^1_{0,2m+1}= S^3\widetilde\times S^2\), on the Wu-manifold with the left action by \(\mathrm{SU}(2)\subset \mathrm{SU}(3)\). Some examples are presented, also. The exposition is clear.