Obstructions to stably fibering manifolds (Q441129)

One says that a map \(f: M\to B\) between compact topological manifolds \textit{stably fibres} if, for some \(n\in \mathbb N\), the composite \[ f\circ \text{Proj}: M\times D^n \to M \to B \] is homotopic to the projection map of a fibre bundle whose fibres are compact topological manifolds. The paper studies two obstructions for \(f\) to stably fibre: the Wall type finiteness obstruction \[ \text{Wall}(p)\in H^0(B; \text{{Wh}}(F)) \] as well as a secondary obstruction \(o(f)\), lying in the cokernel of a specific map \[ \pi_0(\beta): H^0(B; \Omega\text{{Wh}}(F)) \to \text{{Wh}}(\pi_1(M)); \] the second obstruction \(o(f)\) is defined when \(\text{{{Wall}}}(p)=0\). One of the main results of the paper states that the vanishing of the obstructions \(\text{{Wall}}(p)=0\) and \(o(f)=0\) is necessary and sufficient for \(f\) to stably fibre, assuming that the homotopy fibre of \(f\) is finitely dominated. The methods of the paper also provide results for the corresponding uniqueness question and for the problem of fibering of Hilbert cube manifolds, generalising the well-known results of Chapman and Ferry.