On the homotopy classification of proper Fredholm maps into a Hilbert space

DOI10.1515/CRELLE-2017-0054MaRDI QIDQ2295703zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 14 February 2020

Published in Journal für die Reine und Angewandte Mathematik (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.07039

degree theory framed cobordism Fredholm maps homotopy classes

Hilbert and pre-Hilbert spaces: geometry and topology (including spaces with semidefinite inner product) (46C05) Variational problems in abstract bifurcation theory in infinite-dimensional spaces (58E07)

Abstract: We classify the homotopy classes of proper Fredholm maps from an infinite dimensional Hilbert manifold into its model space in terms of a suitable version of framed cobordism. Our construction is an alternative approach to the classification introduced by Elworthy and Tromba in 1970 and does not make use of further structures on the ambient manifold, such as Fredholm structures. In the special case of index zero, we obtain a complete classification involving the Caccioppoli-Smale mod 2 degree and the absolute value of the oriented degree.

Review text

The authors prove that the homotopy class of a map \(f \) between Hilbert manifolds in the category of smooth proper Fredholm maps of index \(n\) is uniquely determined by its homotopy class as a continuous map together with the homotopy class of its Frechet differential \(Df\). Using the above result they show that smooth proper homotopy classes of Fredholm maps of index \(n\) from a manifold \(M\) to a Hilbert space are classified by equivalence classes of compact n-dimensional submanifolds of \(M\) under an appropriately defined notion of framed cobordism which allows to extend the Pontriagin-Thom theory to the Hilbert space setting. While the present classification is less general than the analogous one obtained by \textit{K. D. Elworthy} and \textit{A. J. Tromba} [Proc. Sympos. Pure Math. 15, 45--94 (1970; Zbl 0206.52504)] on the category of Banach manifolds, the proofs are considerable simpler and avoid several technicalities present in [loc. cit.], e.g., the use of Fredholm structures. The classification is particularly striking in the case of non-positive index. If \(n\) is negative, then the homotopy class of \(f\) is completely determined by the homotopy class of the differential \(Df.\) For \(n=0,\) the set of homotopy classes split two subsets: the homotopy classes of orientable and non-orientable maps. Those of orientable maps are determined by the absolute value of the oriented degree, and the homotopy classes of the non-orientable ones are in one to one correspondence with \(Z_2\) via the mod-\(2\) degree.

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