A reciprocity formula for Gauss sums and invariants of 3-manifolds (Q4229972)

A classical reciprocity formula for Gauss sums from the theory of quadratic forms relates \(\sum_{x\bmod d} e(\frac 12 x^\top Ax)\) to \(\sum_{y\bmod A}e(\frac d2 y^\top A^{-1}y)\), where \(A\) is an \(m\times m\) invertible symmetric integer matrix and \(e(t)= e^{2\pi it}\). This paper generalizes the reciprocity formula to Gauss sums of the shape \(\sum_{x\in G}e(q(x))\), where \(q:G\to \mathbb{Q}/\mathbb{Z}\) is a quadratic forms on a finite abelian group \(G\), and provides an interpretation of the formula by means of the correspondence between symmetric bilinear forms on lattices and quadratic forms on finite abelian groups [cf. \textit{A. H. Durfee}, Adv. Math. 95, 133-164 (1977; Zbl 0354.10020)]. As an application, the author considers a certain topological invariant \(\tau (M;G,q)\) of a closed connected oriented 3-manifold \(M\). There is a simply connected compact smooth 4-manifold \(X\) such that \(\partial X=M\) and \(\tau\) is based on the sum \(\sum_{s\in G\times H_2(x;\mathbb{Z})} e(q\otimes B_X(x))\) where \(B_X\) is the intersection form on \(X\). In the full version of the paper [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 351, 1895-1918 (1999)], the author shows that \(\tau\) is independent of \(X\) and moreover that the reciprocity formula yields an explicit description of \(\tau\) in terms of intrinsic 3-dimensional topological data.