Non-Zero Degree Maps Between <Emphasis Type="Italic">2n</Emphasis>-Manifolds

Abstract Thom–Pontrjagin constructions are used to give a computable necessary and sufficient condition for a homomorphism ϕ : H ⁿ (L;Z) → H ⁿ (M;Z) to be realized by a map f : M → L of degree k for closed (n − 1)-connected 2n-manifolds M and L, n > 1. A corollary is that each (n − 1)-connected 2n-manifold admits selfmaps of degree larger than 1, n > 1. In the most interesting case of dimension 4, with the additional surgery arguments we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a degree k map from a closed orientable 4-manifold M to a closed simply connected 4-manifold L in terms of their intersection forms; in particular, there is a map f : M → L of degree 1 if and only if the intersection form of L is isomorphic to a direct summand of that of M. Both authors are supported by MSTC, NSFC. The comments of F. Ding, J. Z. Pan, Y. Su and the referee enhance the quality of the paper