On characteristic classes of exotic manifold bundles

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Publication:2225602



Abstract: Given a closed simply connected manifold M of dimension 2nge6, we compare the ring of characteristic classes of smooth oriented bundles with fibre M to the analogous ring resulting from replacing M by the connected sum MsharpSigma with an exotic sphere Sigma. We show that, after inverting the order of Sigma in the group of homotopy spheres, the two rings in question are isomorphic in a range of degrees. Furthermore, we construct infinite families of examples witnessing that inverting the order of Sigma is necessary.


Given a smooth closed oriented manifold \(M\) and an exotic sphere \(\Sigma\) of the same dimension, one can form the connected sum \(M \# \Sigma\). Sometimes this yields a manifold diffeomorphic to \(M\), if \(\Sigma\) lies in the inertia group of \(M\), but often \(M \# \Sigma\) is not diffeomorphic to \(M\). In the latter case, it is an interesting question to what extent the cohomology \(H^*(B\mathrm{Diff}^+(M);\mathbb{Z})\) of the classifying space of the topological group of orientation-preserving diffeomorphisms of \(M\) differs from \(H^*(B\mathrm{Diff}^+(M \# \Sigma);\mathbb{Z})\). In this paper, it is proven when \(M\) is simply-connected and of even dimension \(2n \geq 6\), then in a range these cohomology groups are isomorphic after replacing the coefficients \(\mathbb{Z}\) by \(\mathbb{Z}[\tfrac{1}{k}]\) with \(k\) the order of \(\Sigma\) in the finite group \(\Theta_{2n}\) of oriented exotic \(2n\)-spheres. This range depends on the ``stable genus of \(M\), in the sense of \textit{S. Galatius} and \textit{O. Randal-Williams} [J. Am. Math. Soc. 31, No. 1, 215--264 (2018; Zbl 1395.57044); Ann. Math. (2) 186, No. 1, 127--204 (2017; Zbl 1412.57026); Acta Math. 212, No. 2, 257--377 (2014; Zbl 1377.55012)]. Furthermore, infinitely many families of examples are constructed to illustrate that it is necessary to invert the order of \(\Sigma\). The main input is the aforementioned work of Galatius and Randal-Williams. This distinguishes it from earlier work of \textit{W. G. Dwyer} and \textit{R. H. Szczarba} [Ill. J. Math. 27, 578--596 (1983; Zbl 0507.57016)], which uses smoothing theory instead to prove a similar result about the classifying space of the identity component of \(\mathrm{Diff}^+(M)\).



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