Cobordism of immersions of surfaces in non-orientable 3-manifolds (Q5929702)

If \(M\) is a 3-manifold, then set \(N_2(M)\) of cobordism classes of immersions of surfaces in \(M\) is a group with composition law given by disjoint union, with existence of negatives proved by an application of the Pontryagin-Thom construction. It is proved here that if \(M\) is nonorientable, then as a set \(N_2(M)\) is isomorphic to \(H_2(M;Z/2)\times H_1(M;Z/2)\times Z/2\), with group law given by \[ (H,\delta,n)*(H',\delta',n')=(H+H',\delta+\delta'+H\cdot H',n+n'), \] where \(H\cdot H'\) is the bilinear intersection form. A similar result was proved for orientable 3-manifolds \(M\) in [\textit{R. Benedetti} and \textit{R. Silhol}, Spin and \(\text{Pin}^-\) structures, immersed and embedded surfaces and a result of Segre on real cubic surfaces, Topology 34, No. 3, 651-678 (1995; Zbl 0996.57519)] with the third factor \(Z/8\) instead of \(Z/2\). The difference is that in a nonorientable manifold there are isotopies that reverse the local orientation.