Invariance of Pontrjagin classes for Bott manifolds

Abstract

A Bott manifold is the total space of some iterated $\mathbb C P^1$-bundle over a point. We prove that any graded ring isomorphism between the cohomology rings of two Bott manifolds preserves their Pontrjagin classes. Moreover, we prove that such an isomorphism is induced from a diffeomorphism if the Bott manifolds are $\mathbb Z/2$-trivial, where a Bott manifold is called $\mathbb Z/2$-trivial if its cohomology ring with $\mathbb Z/2$-coefficient is isomorphic to that of a product of $\mathbb C P^1$'s.