Betti numbers of a class of barely \(G_{2}\) manifolds (Q621324)

A barely \(G_2\) manifold is a \(G_2\) manifold realised as the product of a Calabi-Yau manifold and a circle modulo an involution [\textit{J.~A.~Harvey} and \textit{G.~W.~Moore}, ``Superpotentials and membrane instantons'', \url{arXiv:hep-th/9907026}]. Such manifolds do not have the full \(G_2\) holonomy, but only \((\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z})\ltimes SU(3)\). The author considers a particular class of barely \(G_2\) manifolds: those for which the Calabi-Yau manifold is a complete intersection in a product of projective spaces, and the involution acts freely. For these barely \(G_2\) manifolds, the Betti numbers are explicitly computed. More precisely, by Poincaré duality, \(b_i=b_{7-i}\) and \(b_0=1\) for a connected compact oriented 7-dimensional manifold; so, the relevant Betti numbers are \(b_1,b_2\) and \(b_3\). The author finds that \(b_1=0\) and, for the barely \(G_2\) manifolds in the particular class considered, the possible pairs \((b_2,b_3)\) are given by the following table: \[ \begin{matrix} b_2 & b_3\\ 0& 31+2k&\text{ for }k=0,\dots,22,24,29,30\\ 1& 30+2k&\text{ for }k=0,\dots,19,21\\ 2& 29+2k&\text{ for }k=0,\dots,10,12,13,15\\ 3& 28+2k&\text{ for }k=0,\dots,7,9,10\\ 4& 27+2k&\text{ for }k=0,1,2,3\\ 5& 26 \end{matrix} \] Thus, there is a total of 76 distinct pairs of possible Betti numbers \((b_2,b_3)\); all of these pairs have odd \(b_2+b_3\), with the two subcases \(b_2+b_3\equiv 1\mod 4\) and \(b_2+b_3\equiv 3\mod 4\) almost equally distributed.