Quasitoric manifolds over a product of simplices (Q964014)

A quasitoric manifold (resp. a small cover) is a \(2n\)-dimensional (resp. an \(n\)-dimensional) smooth closed manifold with an effective locally standard action of \(({\mathbb{S}}^1)^n\) (resp. \(({\mathbb{Z}}_2)^n\)) whose orbit space is combinatorially an \(n\)-dimensional simple convex polytope \(P\). In this paper the authors study quasitoric manifolds and small covers in the case where \(P\) is a product of simplices. The paper is motivated by the work of \textit{M. Masuda} and \textit{T. E. Panov} [Sb. Math. 199, No. 8, 1201--1223 (2008; Zbl 1257.57036)] which investigates quasitoric manifolds over a cube. Let \({\mathbb{F}}\) be either \({\mathbb{R}}\) or \({\mathbb{C}}\). A generalized Bott tower over \({\mathbb{F}}\) is a sequence of projective bundles of the Whitney sum of \({\mathbb{F}}\)-line bundles starting with a point. The stages of a generalized Bott tower are called generalized Bott manifolds. The generalized Bott manifolds provide examples of quasitoric manifolds (when \({\mathbb{F}}= {\mathbb{C}}\)) and small covers (when \({\mathbb{F}}={\mathbb{R}}\)) over a product of simplices. Every small cover over a product of simplices is equivalent to a generalized Bott manifold, in the sense of \textit{M. W. Davis} and \textit{T. Januszkiewicz} [Duke Math. J. 62, No. 2, 417--451 (1991; Zbl 0733.52006)]. The corresponding result does not hold for quasitoric manifolds. The authors show that a quasitoric manifold over a product of simplices is equivalent to a generalized Bott manifold if and only if it admits an invariant almost complex structure under the action. Moreover, they show that a quasitoric manifold \(M\) over a product of simplices is homeomorphic to a generalized Bott manifold if \(M\) has the same cohomology ring as a product of complex projective spaces with rational coefficients.