Cobordism obstructions to independent vector fields

DOI10.1093/QMATH/HAU011MaRDI QIDQ5247448zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Marcel Bökstedt, Johan L. Dupont, Anne Marie Svane

Publication date 24 April 2015

Published in The Quarterly Journal of Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1208.3542

zbMATH Keywords

indextangent bundlespinobstructioncharacteristic classsectionslinearly independent

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Stable homotopy theory, spectra (55P42) Homotopy groups of special spaces (55Q52) Characteristic classes and numbers in differential topology (57R20) (mathrm{O})- and (mathrm{SO})-cobordism (57R75) Vector fields, frame fields in differential topology (57R25) Adams spectral sequences (55T15)

Abstract: We define an invariant for the existence of r pointwise linearly independent sections in the tangent bundle of a closed manifold. For low values of r, explicit computations of the homotopy groups of certain Thom spectra combined with classical obstruction theory identifies this invariant as the top obstruction to the existence of the desired sections. In particular, this shows that the top obstruction is an invariant of the underlying manifold in these cases, which is not true in general. The invariant is related to cobordism theory and this gives rise to an identification of the invariant in terms of well-known invariants. As a corollary to the computations, we can also compute low-dimensional homotopy groups of the Thom spectra studied by Galatius, Tillmann, Madsen, and Weiss.

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(5)

• Cobordism independence of Grassmann manifolds
• Euler obstruction and indices of vector fields
• Infinite loop spaces and positive scalar curvature
• A geometric interpretation of the homotopy groups of the cobordism category
• Invertible topological field theories

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