\(\mathbb{Q}\)-trivial generalized Bott manifolds (Q479202)

The rigidity problem for toric manifolds asks if two toric manifolds with isomorphic cohomology rings are homeomorphic. In the paper under review this problem is discussed for a special class of toric manifolds, so-called generalized Bott manifolds. A generalized Bott manifold \(B\) is the total space of a sequence of complex projective space bundles \[ B=B_h\rightarrow B_{h-1}\rightarrow\dots\rightarrow B_0=\{pt\}, \] where each \(B_i\) is the projectivization of a Whitney sum of \(n_i+1\) complex line bundles over \(B_{i-1}\). If all \(n_i\) are equal to one, then \(B\) is called a Bott manifold. It is shown that if \(H^*(B;\mathbb{Q})\cong H^*(\prod_{i=1}^h\mathbb{C} P^{n_i};\mathbb{Q})\), then \(B\) is diffeomorphic to a \(\prod_{n_i>1}\mathbb{C} P^{n_i}\)-bundle over a Bott manifold \(B'\) with \(H^*(B';\mathbb{Q})\cong H^*(\prod_{i=1}^{h'}\mathbb{C} P^{1};\mathbb{Q})\). In particular, if \(n_i>1\) for all \(i\), then \(B\) is diffeomorphic to a product of complex projective spaces.