Euler characteristics of generalized Haken manifolds (Q488588)

The paper under review studies the Euler characteristic on generalized Haken manifolds. These manifolds are endowed with a hierarchy or a way to successively cut open the manifold until one obtains a disjoint union of \(n\)-cells. Haken manifolds are generalized in order to allow arbitrary compact contractible manifolds, as opposed to just cells, at the end of the hierarchy. After the introduction, Chapter 2 is devoted to reviewing much of the background material needed to understand the rest of the paper. This includes analyzing the orbifold Euler characteristic associated to an \(n\)-manifold with boundary pattern, a decomposition of the boundary into connected \((n-1)\)-manifolds such that the intersection of any \(k\) of them is either empty or an \((n-k)\)-submanifold. Chapter 3 introduces the generalized Haken manifolds and proves that they are aspherical. It is then shown that a simple homotopy \(n\)-cell is a Haken homotopy \(n\)-cell if and only if the dual simplicial complex is flag. A collection of \(\mathrm{CAT}(0)\) manifolds are then shown to be Haken. Finally, Chapter 4 discusses the Euler characteristic sign conjecture, applying earlier results for even dimensional aspherical manifolds. Several corollaries along with a conjecture are given.