Classification of Bott towers by matrix (Q282398)

A complex Bott tower \(B_\ast=\{ B_i\}_{i=0}^n\) of height \(n\) is a sequence of \({\mathbb{C}}\mathbb{P}^1\)-bundles \[\begin{tikzcd} B_n \rar["\pi_n"] & B_{n-1} \rar["\pi_{n-1}"] & \cdots \rar["\pi_2"] & B_1 \rar["\pi_1"] & B_0\rlap{\,,} \end{tikzcd}\] where \(B_0\) is a point, \[ B_i= {\mathbb{C}}\mathbb{P}(L_i\oplus {\underline{\mathbb{C}}}),~i=1,2,\ldots, n, \] \(L_i\) is a complex line bundle over \(B_{i-1}\) and \({\underline{\mathbb{C}}}\) is the trivial line bundle. The manifold \(B_n\) is called a Bott manifold of height \(n\). In this paper, the authors establish a criterion for classification of complex Bott towers. Associated to every complex Bott tower \(B_\ast\) is a strictly upper triangular integer matrix \(A\) called the structure matrix of \(B_\ast\). Conversely, any strictly upper triangular integer matrix \(A\) defines a Bott tower denoted by \(B_\ast(A)\). The authors define an equivalence relation on the set of all strictly upper triangular integer matrices based on two matrix operations. Let \(B_\ast(A)\) and \(B_\ast(A')\) be the Bott towers with structure matrices \(A\) and \(A'\), respectively. The main result of this paper says that the towers \(B_\ast(A)\) and \(B_\ast(A')\) are isomorphic if and only if \(A\) and \(A'\) are equivalent. This classification of Bott towers is closely related to the cohomological rigidity problem for both Bott towers and Bott manifolds.