Equivariant semicharacteristics and induction (Q689590)

This paper is concerned with a semicharacteristic bordism invariant for manifolds equipped with an action of a finite group with specified isotropy. More explicitly, let \(F\) be a family of subgroups of a finite group \(G\) and \(\Omega^ G_ *(F)\) an oriented bordism of manifolds with orientation preserving \(G\) action with isotropy subgroups in \(F\). For \(K\), a field, let \(G_ 0(KG)\) be the Grothendieck ring with elements represented by virtual \(G\)-representations on finite dimensional vector spaces over \(K\). If \(G\) acts on an odd dimensional, closed, oriented \(n\)- manifold \(M\) then \(X_{1\over 2}(M;K) = \sum_{i < {n\over 2}}(-1)^ iH_ i(M,K)\in G_ 0(KG)\) defines the equivariant semicharacteristic and it is shown that it induces a well defined bordism invariant \(X_{1\over 2}:\Omega^ G_ n(F)\to L\), where \(L\) is an appropriately defined subquotient of \(G_ 0(KG)\), with enough ``modded out'' to ensure that the semicharacteristic of a bounding manifold vanishes. Among the results are: Theorem: Under appropriate conditions if \([M]\in \Omega^ G_ n(F)\) with \(n\) odd then \(X_{1\over 2}(M;K)\) vanishes in \(L\) if \(G\) acts with no fixed points. If there are fixed points and the normal bundle of the manifold \(M^ G\) of fixed points admits an equivariant complex structure then \(X_{1\over 2}(M;K) = X_{1\over2}(M^ G;K) \in L\). The following is an explicit example of the types of homological restrictions, implied by the above result, on group actions on manifolds. Theorem: Suppose the dihedral group of order \(2k\), \(k > 1\), acts smoothly and orientation preserving on a closed \(n\)-manifold \(M\) with \(n\equiv 1\text{mod } 4\). If the restriction of the action to the cyclic subgroup \(z_ k \subset G\) is free on \(M - M^ G\) then all the components of \(M^ G\) have dimension congruent to \(1\text{mod }4\), and for all \(h\in z_ k - \{e\}\), the semi-Lefschetz number \(\sum_{i < {n\over 2}}(- 1)^ i\text{ trace }(h_ *: H_ i(M;Q) \to H_ i(M;Q))\) is congruent modulo 2 to the semicharacteristic of \(M^ G\).