Free circle actions on Dold and Wall manifolds (Q6044440)

The \textit{ Dold manifold} \(P(m,n)\) is the quotient \(\mathbb{S}^m\times \mathbb{CP}^n/\sim\) where \((x,[z]) \sim (-x,[z]) \). The \textit{ Wall manifold} is the mapping torus of the involutive homeomorphism on the corresponding Dold manifold given by the reflection \((x_0,\dots, x_{m-1},x_m)\, \mapsto\, (x_0,\dots, x_{m-1}, -x_m)\) on the first factor and identity on the second factor. Such manifolds are important in the bordism theory. In this paper, the authors construct examples of free actions of \(\mathbb{S}^1\) on the Dold manifold and compute the cohomology algebra of the orbit space \(X/\mathbb{S}^1\) where \(X\) is any finitistic space with mod 2 cohomology of a Dold manifold \(P(m,\mathrm{odd} )\). For any integers \(m, n\), the Wall manifold of type \(Q(m,n)\) can not admit any free circle action. The proofs involve cohomology computations.