arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Volker Puppe.
We develop a theory of syzygies in equivariant cohomology for tori as well as $p$-tori and coefficients in $\mathbb{F}_p$. A noteworthy feature is a new algebraic approach to the partial exactness of the Atiyah-Bredon sequence, which also covers all instances considered so far.
We consider closed manifolds, which occur as intersections of products of spheres of the same dimension with certain hyperplanes. Among those are the so called (big) polygon- and chain spaces. The equivariant cohomology with respect to natural actions of 2-tori is calculated and related to the notion of syzygy. It turns out that the equivariant cohomology module of these manifolds is often torsion free, but not free over the cohomology of the group. Coefficients are taken in the field with two elements.
We prove a Poincare-Alexander-Lefschetz duality theorem for rational torus-equivariant cohomology and rational homology manifolds. We allow non-compact and non-orientable spaces. We use this to deduce certain short exact sequences in equivariant cohomology, originally due to Duflot in the differentiable case, from similar, but more general short exact sequences in equivariant homology. A crucial role is played by the Cohen-Macaulayness of relative equivariant cohomology modules arising from the orbit filtration.
Let X be a "nice" space with an action of a torus T. We consider the Atiyah-Bredon sequence of equivariant cohomology modules arising from the filtration of X by orbit dimension. We show that a front piece of this sequence is exact if and only if the H^*(BT)-module H_T^*(X) is a certain syzygy. Moreover, we express the cohomology of that sequence as an Ext module involving a suitably defined equivariant homology of X. One consequence is that the GKM method for computing equivariant cohomology applies to a Poincare duality space if and only if the equivariant Poincare pairing is perfect.
Let T be a torus. We present an exact sequence relating the relative equivariant cohomologies of the skeletons of an equivariantly formal T-space. This sequence, which goes back to Atiyah and Bredon, generalizes the so-called Chang-Skjelbred lemma. As coefficients, we allow prime fields and subrings of the rationals, including the integers. We extend to the same coefficients a generalization of this "Atiyah-Bredon sequence" for actions without fixed points which has recently been obtained by Goertsches and Toeben.
We use the multiplicative structure of the Koszul resolution to give short and simple proofs of some known estimates for the total dimension of the cohomology of spaces which admit free torus actions and analogous results for filtered differential modules over polynomial rings. We also point out the possibility of improving these results in the presence of a multiplicative structure on the so-called minimal Hirsch-Brown model for the equivariant cohomology of the space.
We survey generalisations of the Chang-Skjelbred Lemma for integral coefficients. Moreover, we construct examples of manifolds with actions of tori of rank > 2 whose equivariant cohomology is torsion-free, but not free. This answers a question of Allday's. The "mutants" we construct are obtained from compactified representations and involve Hopf bundles in a crucial way.
We study a correspondence between orientation reversing involutions on compact 3-manifolds with only isolated fixed points and binary, self-dual codes. We show in particular that every such code can be obtained from such an involution. We further relate doubly even codes to Pin^- -structures and Spin-manifolds.
Using methods applied by Atiyah in equivariant K-theory, Bredon obtained exact sequences for the relative cohomologies (with rational coefficients) of the equivariant skeletons of (sufficiently nice) T-spaces, T=(S^1)^n, with free equivariant cohomology over the cohomology of BT. Here we characterise those finite T-CW complexes with connected isotropy groups for which an analogous result holds with integral coefficients.
This note is surveying certain aspects (including recent results) of the following problem stated by F.Raymond and R.Schultz: ''It is generally felt that a manifold 'chosen at random' will have little symmetry. Can this intuitive notion be made more precise? Does there exist a closed simply connected manifold, on which no finite group acts effectively? (A weaker question, no involution?)''
We prove that the coefficients of the so-called conjugation equation for conjugation spaces in the sense of Hausmann-Holm-Puppe are completely determined by Steenrod squares. This generalises a result of V.A. Krasnov for certain complex algebraic varieties. It also leads to a generalisation of a formula given by Borel and Haefliger, thereby largely answering an old question of theirs in the affirmative.
There are classical examples of spaces X with an involution tau whose mod 2-comhomology ring resembles that of their fixed point set X^tau: there is a ring isomorphism kappa: H^2*(X) --> H^*(X^tau). Such examples include complex Grassmannians, toric manifolds, polygon spaces. In this paper, we show that the ring isomorphism kappa is part of an interesting structure in equivariant cohomology called an H^*-frame. An H^*-frame, if it exists, is natural and unique. A space with involution admitting an H^*-frame is called a conjugation space. Many examples of conjugation spaces are constructed, for instance by successive adjunctions of cells homeomorphic to a disk in C^k with the complex conjugation. A compact symplectic manifold, with an anti-symplectic involution compatible with a Hamiltonian action of a torus T, is a conjugation space, provided X^T is itself a conjugation space. This includes the co-adjoint orbits of any semi-simple compact Lie group, equipped with the Chevalley involution. We also study conjugate-equivariant complex vector bundles (`real bundles' in the sense of Atiyah) over a conjugation space and show that the isomorphism kappa maps the Chern classes onto the Stiefel-Whitney classes of the fixed bundle.
An old result of the first author and David Lieberman says that if a compact Kaehler manifold X admits a holomorphic vector field V having at least one zero, then the Dolbeault cohomology algebra H^*(X, Ω^*) of X is isomorphic with the bigraded algebra associated to a certain filtered graded ring. If V has isolated zeros this is the graded algebra associated to a certain filtration of the coordinate ring of the scheme Z defined by zero(V). The purpose of this note is to show that if V is generated by a torus action then equivariant Dolbeault cohomology can be used to give direct geometric proofs of the above result. What is particularly interesting is the picture obtained when zero(V) has positive dimension.
In our book on cohomological methods in transformation groups the minimal Hirsch-Brown model was used to good effect. The construction there, however, was rather abstract. Here, for smooth compact connected Lie group actions on smooth closed manifolds, we give a much more explicit construction of the minmal Hirsch-Brown model using operators from classical Hodge theory and the small Cartan model. As a simple example, we discuss circle actions on complex projective space, computing the deformation terms in the product by means of the moment map in two different ways.
We develop a new approach to the pulling back fixed point theorem of W. Browder and use it in order to prove various generalizations of this result.