A note on torus actions and the Witten genus (Q505551)

In the paper under review the author obtains vanishing results for the Witten genus of spin manifolds that admit almost effective torus actions. In what follows, let \(M\) be a spin manifold such that the first Pontryagin class \(p_1(M)\) is torsion. The author shows that the Witten genus of \(M\) vanishes if there is a torus \(T\), with \(\text{rank } T> b_2(M)\), acting almost effectively on \(M\). This result generalizes a result of \textit{K. Liu} concerning circle actions, see [J. Differ. Geom. 41, No. 2, 343--396 (1995; Zbl 0836.57024)]. Assume then that both \(p_1(M)=0\) and \(b_1(M)=0\), and let \(H\) be a semisimple compact connected Lie group with \(\dim H>0\). The author considers torus actions on the product \(M\times H/T'\), where \(T'\) is a maximal torus of \(H\). He shows that if there is a torus \(T\), with \(\text{rank } T>\text{rank } H+b_2(M)\), that acts almost effectively on \(M\times H/T'\), then the Witten genus of \(M\) vanishes. The author finishes the paper by applying the methods used to prove the vanishing theorems to obtain a finiteness result for torus and quasitoric manifolds: up to homeomorphism (diffeomorphism) there are only finitely many simply connected torus manifolds (quasitoric manifolds) having the same cohomology ring as \(\#_{i=1}^k\pm {\mathbb{C}}P^n\) with \(k<n\). The methods of this paper are further applied to the study of torus actions on complete intersections and homotopy complex projective spaces by the author and \textit{A. Dessai}, see [``Complete intersections with \(S^{1}\)-action'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1108.5327}].