On the universal pairing for 2-complexes (Q6930187)

The universal pairing for manifolds is defined as follows. For an oriented compact \((d-1)\)-manifold \(S\), \(M_S\) is the vector space of formal \(\mathbb C\)-linear combinations of oriented \(d\)-manifolds with boundary equal to \(S\). The universal pairing \(\langle\, ,\,\rangle\colon M_S\times M_S\to M_\emptyset\) is defined by gluing manifolds along their common boundary (reversing the orientation and conjugating the coefficients of the second argument). The pairing is positive if \(\langle x,x\rangle =0\) implies \(x=0\) for all \(x\in M_S\).\N\NThe authors define an analogous construction for 2-complexes. It is shown that the universal pairing for 2-complexes does not detect the difference between simple homotopy equivalence and 3-deformations. They also discuss the universal pairing for higher dimensional complexes and show that it is not positive.