Topological classification of affine operators on unitary and Euclidean spaces

We classify affine operators on a unitary or Euclidean space U up to topological conjugacy. An affine operator is a map f: U-->U of the form f(x)=Ax+b, in which A: U-->U is a linear operator and b in U. Two affine operators f and g are said to be topologically conjugate if hg=fh for some homeomorphism h: U-->U

Surgery untying of coloured knots

For p=3 and for p=5 we prove that there are exactly p equivalence classes of p-coloured knots modulo (+/-1)--framed surgeries along unknots in the kernel of a p-colouring. These equivalence classes are represented by connect-sums of n left-hand (p,2)-torus knots with a given colouring when n=1,2,...,p. This gives a 3-colour and a 5-colour analogue of the surgery presentation of a knot.Comment: This is the version published by Algebraic & Geometric Topology on 24 May 200

Equivariant characteristic classes of singular complex algebraic varieties

Homology Hirzebruch characteristic classes for singular varieties have been recently defined by Brasselet-Schuermann-Yokura as an attempt to unify previously known characteristic class theories for singular spaces (e.g., MacPherson-Chern classes, Baum-Fulton-MacPherson Todd classes, and Goresky-MacPherson L-classes, respectively). In this note we define equivariant analogues of these classes for singular quasi-projective varieties acted upon by a finite group of algebraic automorphisms, and show how these can be used to calculate the homology Hirzebruch classes of global quotient varieties. We also compute the new classes in the context of monodromy problems, e.g., for varieties that fiber equivariantly (in the complex topology) over a connected algebraic manifold. As another application, we discuss Atiyah-Meyer type formulae for twisted Hirzebruch classes of global orbifolds.Comment: v2: updates include a motivic approach, as well as an Atiyah-Meyer formula for global orbifolds, including a defect formul

On fibering and splitting of 5-manifolds over the circle

Our main result is a generalization of Cappell's 5-dimensional splitting theorem. As an application, we analyze, up to internal s-cobordism, the smoothable splitting and fibering problems for certain 5-manifolds mapping to the circle. For example, these maps may have homotopy fibers which are in the class of finite connected sums of certain geometric 4-manifolds. Most of these homotopy fibers have non-vanishing second mod 2 homology and have fundamental groups of exponential growth, which are not known to be tractable by Freedman--Quinn topological surgery. Indeed, our key technique is topological cobordism, which may not be the trace of surgeries.Comment: 22 pages, exposition revised for better self-containmen

Fredholm-Lagrangian-Grassmannian and the Maslov index

We explain the topology of the space, so called, Fredholm-Lagrangian-Grassmannain and the quantity ``Maslov index'' for paths in this space based on the standard theory of Functional Analysis. Our standing point is to define the Maslov index for arbitrary paths in terms of the fundamental spectral property of the Fredholm operators, which was first recognized by J. Phillips and used to define the ``Spectral flow''. We tried to make the arguments to be all elementary and we summarize basic facts for this article from Functional Analysis in the Appendix.Comment: 64 pages, no figur