Multiplicative properties of Morin maps (Q982419)

This paper is motivated by the difficult question of how the direct product operation influences the singularities of maps. A Morin map is a generic smooth map such that the kernel of the induced derivative map of tangent bundles is at most one-dimensional at each point; the singularities of Morin maps are classified by their Thom-Boardman type. The authors consider the set of cobordism classes of all Morin maps from closed manifolds to Euclidean spaces; this is a bigraded commutative group, with addition induced by the disjoint union of maps. By taking the tensor product with the rational numbers \(\mathbb Q\), one obtains from this group the rational cobordism group of Morin maps whose elements are called the rational cobordism classes of Morin maps. The rational cobordism group of Morin maps is then converted into a bigraded ring, which the authors denote \(\text{Mor}_ {\mathbb Q}\). As the main result of the paper under review, they compute the ring \(\text{Mor}_ {\mathbb Q}\). More precisely, first the authors identify the components of \(\text{Mor}_ {\mathbb Q}\) with certain subgroups of the rational oriented cobordism ring \({\Omega_ *}\otimes \mathbb Q\). An element in the ring \(\text{Mor}_ {\mathbb Q}\) is completely determined by its grading and its collection of singular strata. The authors prove that the multiplication in \(\text{Mor}_ {\mathbb Q}\) corresponds to the direct product of cobordism classes represented by the singular strata. In view of the fact that the manifolds corresponding to the various singularity strata of Morin maps multiply independently of each other, the ring \(\text{Mor}_ {\mathbb Q}\) is completely computed. In addition, in the final section, the authors derive several results on homology (or cohomology) properties of singular strata of products of general singular maps.