Bounds for the cup-length of Poincaré spaces and their applications

Our main result offers a new (quite systematic) way of deriving bounds for the cup-length of Poincaré spaces over fields; we outline a general research program based on this result. For the oriented Grassmann manifolds, already a limited realization of the program leads, in many cases, to the exact values of the cup-length and to interesting information on the Lyusternik-Shnirel'man category.     

On the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of Stiefel manifolds

We determine the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of real Stiefel manifolds Vn,k and quaternionic Stiefel manifolds Xn,k for n?2k which is equal to the cup-length of the mod 2 cohomology of Vn,k and the integer cohomology of Xn,k, respectively.     

On the Lusternik–Schnirelmann category of Peano continua

We define the LS-category _catg${\mathrm{cat}}_g$ by means of covers of a space by general subsets, and show that this definition coincides with the classical Lusternik–Schnirelmann category for compact metric ANR spaces. We apply this result to give short dimension theoretic proofs of the Grossman–Whitehead theorem and Dranishnikov?s theorem. We compute _catg${\mathrm{cat}}_g$ for some fractal Peano continua such as Menger spaces and Pontryagin surfaces.     

Topological complexity, fibrations and symmetry

We show how locally smooth actions of compact Lie groups on a manifold X can be used to obtain new upper bounds for the topological complexity TC(X), in the sense of Farber. We also obtain new bounds for the topological complexity of finitely generated torsion-free nilpotent groups.     

Surgery and harmonic spinors

Let M be a compact spin manifold with a chosen spin structure. The Atiyah-Singer index theorem implies that for any Riemannian metric on M the dimension of the kernel of the Dirac operator is bounded from below by a topological quantity depending only on M and the spin structure. We show that for generic metrics on M this bound is attained.     

The higher derived functors of the primitive element functor of quasitoric manifolds

Let P be an n-dimensional, q?1 neighborly simple convex polytope and let M2n(λ) be the corresponding quasitoric manifold. The manifold depends on a particular map of lattices λ:Zm→Zn where m is the number of facets of P. In this note we use ESP-sequences in the sense of Larry Smith to show that the higher derived functors of the primitive element functor are independent of λ. Coupling this with results that appear in Bousfield (1970) [3] we are able to enrich the library of nice homology coalgebras by showing that certain families of quasitoric manifolds are nice, at least rationally, from Bousfield?s perspective.     

The proper L-S category of Whitehead manifolds

It is shown that the proper L-S category of an eventually end-irreducible, R²-irreducible Whitehead 3-manifold is 4. For this we prove, in the category of germs at infinity of proper maps, a partial analogue of the characterization by Eilenberg and Ganea of the L-S category of an aspherical space.     

Abelianization for hyperkähler quotients

We study an integration theory in circle equivariant cohomology in order to prove a theorem relating the cohomology ring of a hyperkähler quotient to the cohomology ring of the quotient by a maximal abelian subgroup, analogous to a theorem of Martin for symplectic quotients. We discuss applications of this theorem to quiver varieties, and compute as an example the ordinary and equivariant cohomology rings of a hyperpolygon space.     

On Fox?s m-dimensional category and theorems of Bochner type

We show that catm(X)=cat(jm), where catm(X) is Fox?s m-dimensional category, jm:X→X[m] is the mth Postnikov section of X and cat(X) is the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of X. This characterization is used to give new “Bochner-type” bounds on the rank of the Gottlieb group and the first Betti number for manifolds of non-negative Ricci curvature. Finally, we apply these methods to obtain Bochner-type theorems for manifolds of almost non-negative sectional curvature.     

Cone-decompositions of the unitary groups

The Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of a space is a homotopy invariant. Cone-decompositions are used for giving upper-bound for Lusternik-Schnirelmann categories of topological spaces. Singhof has determined the Lusternik-Schnirelmann categories of the unitary groups. In this paper I give two cone-decompositions of each unitary group for alternative proofs of Singhof's result. One cone-decomposition is easy. The other is closely related to Miller's filtration and Yokota's cellular decomposition of the unitary groups.     

L-S category of quaternionic Stiefel manifolds

By calculating certain generalized cohomology theory, lower bounds for the L-S category of quaternionic Stiefel manifolds are given.     

The configuration space of the n-arms machine in the Euclidean space

As a typical kind of mechanical linkage, we consider the n-arms machine in Rd. The machine consists of n 2-legs with equal length such that the initial point of each 2-leg is fixed to a circle, while all tips of the 2-legs are combined to a central joint. We determine the homotopy type of the configuration space of the n-arms machine.     

On the localization formula in equivariant cohomology

We give a generalization of the Atiyah-Bott-Berline-Vergne localization theorem for the equivariant cohomology of a torus action. We replace the manifold having a torus action by an equivariant map of manifolds having a compact connected Lie group action. This provides a systematic method for calculating the Gysin homomorphism in ordinary cohomology of an equivariant map. As an example, we recover a formula of Akyildiz-Carrell for the Gysin homomorphism of flag manifolds.     

On connected sums and Legendrian knots

We study the behavior of Legendrian and transverse knots under the operation of connected sums. As a consequence we show that there exist Legendrian knots that are not distinguished by any known invariant. Moreover, we classify Legendrian knots in some non-Legendrian-simple knot types.     

A lower bound for higher topological complexity of real projective space

We obtain an explicit formula for the best lower bound for the higher topological complexity, ${\mathrm{TC}}_k(R{P}^n)$, of real projective space implied by mod 2 cohomology.     

Cup and cap products in intersection (co)homology

We construct cup and cap products in intersection (co)homology with field coefficients. The existence of the cap product allows us to give a new proof of Poincaré duality in intersection (co)homology which is similar in spirit to the usual proof for ordinary (co)homology of manifolds.     

Sections of Serre fibrations with 2-manifold fibers

It was proved by H. Whitney in 1933 that a Serre fibration of compact metric spaces admits a global section provided every fiber is homeomorphic to the unit interval [0,1]. Results of this paper extend Whitney's theorem to the case when all fibers are homeomorphic to a given compact two-dimensional manifold.     

Local sections of Serre fibrations with 3-manifold fibers

It was proved by H. Whitney in 1933 that a Serre fibration of compact metric spaces admits a global section provided every fiber is homeomorphic to the unit interval [0,1]. An extension of the Whitney's theorem to the case when all fibers are homeomorphic to some fixed compact two-dimensional manifold was proved by the authors (Brodsky et al. (2008) [2]). The main result of this paper proves the existence of local sections in a Serre fibration with all fibers homeomorphic to some fixed compact three-dimensional manifold.