Topological classification of torus manifolds which have codimension one extended actions

A toric manifold is a compact non-singular toric variety equipped with a natural half-dimensional compact torus action. A torus manifold is an oriented, closed, smooth manifold of dimension $2n$ with an effective action of a compact torus $T^{n}$ having a non-empty fixed point set. Hence, a torus manifold can be thought of as a generalization of a toric manifold. In the present paper, we focus on a certain class \mM in the family of torus manifolds with codimension one extended actions, and we give a topological classification of \mM. As a result, their topological types are completely determined by their cohomology rings and real characteristic classes. The problem whether the cohomology ring determines the topological type of a toric manifold or not is one of the most interesting open problems in toric topology. One can also ask this problem for the class of torus manifolds even if its orbit spaces are highly structured. Our results provide a negative answer to this problem for torus manifolds. However, we find a sub-class of torus manifolds with codimension one extended actions which is not in the class of toric manifolds but which is classified by their cohomology rings.Comment: 20 page

On the microlocal properties of the range of systems of principal type

The purpose of this paper is to study microlocal conditions for inclusion relations between the ranges of square systems of pseudodifferential operators which fail to be locally solvable. The work is an extension of earlier results for the scalar case in this direction, where analogues of results by L. H\"ormander about inclusion relations between the ranges of first order differential operators with coefficients in $C^\infty$ which fail to be locally solvable were obtained. We shall study the properties of the range of systems of principal type with constant characteristics for which condition (\Psi) is known to be equivalent to microlocal solvability.Comment: Added Theorem 4.7, Corollary 4.8 and Lemma A.4, corrected misprints. The paper has 40 page

On the cohomology algebra of a fiber

Let f:E-->B be a fibration of fiber F. Eilenberg and Moore have proved that there is a natural isomorphism of vector spaces between H^*(F;F_p) and Tor^{C^*(B)}(C^*(E),F_p). Generalizing the rational case proved by Sullivan, Anick [Hopf algebras up to homotopy, J. Amer. Math. Soc. 2 (1989) 417--453] proved that if X is a finite r-connected CW-complex of dimension < rp+1 then the algebra of singular cochains C^*(X;F_p) can be replaced by a commutative differential graded algebra A(X) with the same cohomology. Therefore if we suppose that f:E-->B is an inclusion of finite r-connected CW-complexes of dimension < rp+1, we obtain an isomorphism of vector spaces between the algebra H^*(F;F_p) and Tor^{A(B)}(A(E),F_p) which has also a natural structure of algebra. Extending the rational case proved by Grivel-Thomas-Halperin [PP Grivel, Formes differentielles et suites spectrales, Ann. Inst. Fourier 29 (1979) 17--37] and [S Halperin, Lectures on minimal models, Soc. Math. France 9-10 (1983)] we prove that this isomorphism is in fact an isomorphism of algebras. In particular, $H^*(F;F_p) is a divided powers algebra and p-th powers vanish in the reduced cohomology \mathaccent "707E {H}^*(F;F_p).Comment: Published by Algebraic and Geometric Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/agt/AGTVol1/agt-1-36.abs.htm

Geometric formality of homogeneous spaces and of biquotients

We provide examples of homogeneous spaces which are neither symmetric spaces nor real cohomology spheres, yet have the property that every invariant metric is geometrically formal. We also extend the known obstructions to geometric formality to some new classes of homogeneous spaces and of biquotients, and to certain sphere bundles.Comment: 15 page

Cohomological non-rigidity of generalized real Bott manifolds of height 2

We investigate when two generalized real Bott manifolds of height 2 have isomorphic cohomology rings with Z/2 coefficients and also when they are diffeomorphic. It turns out that cohomology rings with Z/2 coefficients do not distinguish those manifolds up to diffeomorphism in general. This gives a counterexample to the cohomological rigidity problem for real toric manifolds posed in \cite{ka-ma08}. We also prove that generalized real Bott manifolds of height 2 are diffeomorphic if they are homotopy equivalent

On the existence of branched coverings between surfaces with prescribed branch data, II

For a given branched covering between closed connected surfaces, there are several easy relations one can establish between the Euler characteristics of the surfaces, their orientability, the total degree, and the local degrees at the branching points, including the classical Riemann-Hurwitz formula. These necessary relations have been khown to be also sufficient for the existence of the covering except when the base surface is the sphere (and when it is the projective plane, but this case reduces to the case of the sphere). If the base surface is the sphere, many exceptions are known to occur and the problem is widely open. Generalizing methods of Baranski, we prove in this paper that the necessary relations are actually sufficient in a specific but rather interesting situation. Namely under the assumption that the base surface is the sphere, that there are three branching points, that one of these branching points has only two preimages with one being a double point, and either that the covering surface is the sphere and that the degree is odd, or that the covering surface has genus at least one, with a single specific exception. For the case of the covering surface the sphere we also show that for each even degree there are precisely two exceptions.Comment: 38 pages, 21 figures. This is a sequel of math.GT/050843

Universal circles for quasigeodesic flows

We show that if M is a hyperbolic 3-manifold which admits a quasigeodesic flow, then pi_1(M) acts faithfully on a universal circle by homeomorphisms, and preserves a pair of invariant laminations of this circle. As a corollary, we show that the Thurston norm can be characterized by quasigeodesic flows, thereby generalizing a theorem of Mosher, and we give the first example of a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold without a quasigeodesic flow, answering a long-standing question of Thurston.Comment: This is the version published by Geometry & Topology on 29 November 2006. V4: typsetting correction

Relative Gerbes

This paper introduces the notion of ``relative gerbes'' for smooth maps of manifolds, and discusses their differential geometry. The equivalence classes of relative gerbes are further classified by the relative integral cohomology in degree three