No label defined (Q4249231)

In this interesting paper, the approach to knot invariants initiated by Vassiliev is examined in the case of maps of \(n\)-dimensional smooth manifolds into \({\mathbb R}^{2n}\). To apply Vassiliev's approach, the authors consider the full space \(C^{\infty}(M^n, {\mathbb R}^{2n})\) of smooth mappings. The regular objects are the stable maps \(f:M^n \to {\mathbb R}^{2n}\). These are well known to be immersions with at most double transversal self-intersections, and to form an open and dense subset in \(C^{\infty}(M^n, {\mathbb R}^{2n})\). Embeddings, which correspond to knotted manifolds, are special cases of stable immersions. The authors study invariants of stable immersions up to (a variant of) ambient isotopy, which they call \({\mathcal A}_0\)-equivalence. The set of all maps \(g \in C^{\infty}(M^n, {\mathbb R}^{2n})\) which are not stable is denoted by \(D\) and called the discriminant. It can be proved that two stable maps \(f,f': M^n \to {\mathbb R}^{2n}\) are \({\mathcal A}_0\)-equivalent if and only if \(f\) and \(f'\) are in the same connected component in the complement \(C^{\infty}(M^n, {\mathbb R}^{2n}) \smallsetminus D\) of the discriminant. Thus any invariant of \({\mathcal A}_0\)-equivalence of stable immersions \(M^n \to {\mathbb R}^{2n}\) can be thought of as a locally constant function in the complement \(C^{\infty}(M^n, {\mathbb R}^{2n}) \smallsetminus D\). Assume that \(M^n\) is a closed connected manifold of dimension \(n\). Let \(\sigma\) be the invariant which counts the number of self-intersection points of stable immersions \(M^n \to {\mathbb R}^{2n}\). If the dimension \(n\) is even, let \(\varepsilon\) be the Euler number of the normal bundles of stable immersions (or twisted Euler number if \(M^n\) is nonorientable). Then the main results of the paper are as follows. Theorem 1: If the dimension \(n\) is even, then each finite type invariant of a stable immersion \(M^n \to {\mathbb R}^{2n}\) is a polynomial in the invariants \(\sigma\) and \(\varepsilon\). Theorem 2: If the dimension \(n\) is odd, then each finite type invariant of a stable immersion \(M^n \to {\mathbb R}^{2n}\) is a polynomial in the invariant \(\sigma\). For the entire collection see [Zbl 0910.00021].