Stable systolic category of manifolds and the cup-length

It follows from a theorem of Gromov that the stable systolic category cat_stsys M{\rm cat}_{\rm stsys} M of a closed manifold M is bounded from below by cl_\mathbbQ M{\rm cl}_{\mathbb{Q}} M, the rational cup-length of M Ka07]. We study the inequality in the opposite direction. In particular, combining our results with Gromov’s theorem, we prove the equality cat_stsys M = cl_\mathbbQ M{\rm cat}_{\rm stsys} M = {\rm cl}_{\mathbb{Q}} M for simply connected manifolds of dimension ≤ 7.