Spaces of PL Manifolds and Categories of Simple Maps (AM-186)

Spaces of PL Manifolds and Categories of Simple Maps (AM-186) PDF

Author: Friedhelm Waldhausen

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-04-21

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1400846528

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Since its introduction by Friedhelm Waldhausen in the 1970s, the algebraic K-theory of spaces has been recognized as the main tool for studying parametrized phenomena in the theory of manifolds. However, a full proof of the equivalence relating the two areas has not appeared until now. This book presents such a proof, essentially completing Waldhausen's program from more than thirty years ago. The main result is a stable parametrized h-cobordism theorem, derived from a homotopy equivalence between a space of PL h-cobordisms on a space X and the classifying space of a category of simple maps of spaces having X as deformation retract. The smooth and topological results then follow by smoothing and triangulation theory. The proof has two main parts. The essence of the first part is a "desingularization," improving arbitrary finite simplicial sets to polyhedra. The second part compares polyhedra with PL manifolds by a thickening procedure. Many of the techniques and results developed should be useful in other connections.

Surveys on Surgery Theory (AM-149), Volume 2

Surveys on Surgery Theory (AM-149), Volume 2 PDF

Author: Sylvain Cappell

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-09-08

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 1400865212

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Surgery theory, the basis for the classification theory of manifolds, is now about forty years old. The sixtieth birthday (on December 14, 1996) of C.T.C. Wall, a leading member of the subject's founding generation, led the editors of this volume to reflect on the extraordinary accomplishments of surgery theory as well as its current enormously varied interactions with algebra, analysis, and geometry. Workers in many of these areas have often lamented the lack of a single source surveying surgery theory and its applications. Because no one person could write such a survey, the editors asked a variety of experts to report on the areas of current interest. This is the second of two volumes resulting from that collective effort. It will be useful to topologists, to other interested researchers, and to advanced students. The topics covered include current applications of surgery, Wall's finiteness obstruction, algebraic surgery, automorphisms and embeddings of manifolds, surgery theoretic methods for the study of group actions and stratified spaces, metrics of positive scalar curvature, and surgery in dimension four. In addition to the editors, the contributors are S. Ferry, M. Weiss, B. Williams, T. Goodwillie, J. Klein, S. Weinberger, B. Hughes, S. Stolz, R. Kirby, L. Taylor, and F. Quinn.

Classifying Spaces for Surgery and Corbordism of Manifolds. (AM-92), Volume 92

Classifying Spaces for Surgery and Corbordism of Manifolds. (AM-92), Volume 92 PDF

Author: Ib Madsen

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2016-03-02

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1400881471

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Beginning with a general discussion of bordism, Professors Madsen and Milgram present the homotopy theory of the surgery classifying spaces and the classifying spaces for the various required bundle theories. The next part covers more recent work on the maps between these spaces and the properties of the PL and Top characteristic classes, and includes integrality theorems for topological and PL manifolds. Later chapters treat the integral cohomology of BPL and Btop. The authors conclude with a discussion of the PL and topological cobordism rings and a construction of the torsion-free generators.

Surgery on Compact Manifolds

Surgery on Compact Manifolds PDF

Author: Charles Terence Clegg Wall

Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0821809423

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The publication of this book in 1970 marked the culmination of a period in the history of the topology of manifolds. This edition, based on the original text, is supplemented by notes on subsequent developments and updated references and commentaries.

An Introduction to Manifolds

An Introduction to Manifolds PDF

Author: Loring W. Tu

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-10-05

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 1441974008

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Manifolds, the higher-dimensional analogs of smooth curves and surfaces, are fundamental objects in modern mathematics. Combining aspects of algebra, topology, and analysis, manifolds have also been applied to classical mechanics, general relativity, and quantum field theory. In this streamlined introduction to the subject, the theory of manifolds is presented with the aim of helping the reader achieve a rapid mastery of the essential topics. By the end of the book the reader should be able to compute, at least for simple spaces, one of the most basic topological invariants of a manifold, its de Rham cohomology. Along the way, the reader acquires the knowledge and skills necessary for further study of geometry and topology. The requisite point-set topology is included in an appendix of twenty pages; other appendices review facts from real analysis and linear algebra. Hints and solutions are provided to many of the exercises and problems. This work may be used as the text for a one-semester graduate or advanced undergraduate course, as well as by students engaged in self-study. Requiring only minimal undergraduate prerequisites, 'Introduction to Manifolds' is also an excellent foundation for Springer's GTM 82, 'Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology'.

Surgery on Simply-Connected Manifolds

Surgery on Simply-Connected Manifolds PDF

Author: William Browder

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 364250020X

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This book is an exposition of the technique of surgery on simply-connected smooth manifolds. Systematic study of differentiable manifolds using these ideas was begun by Milnor [45] and Wallace [68] and developed extensively in the last ten years. It is now possible to give a reasonably complete theory of simply-connected manifolds of dimension ~ 5 using this approach and that is what I will try to begin here. The emphasis has been placed on stating and proving the general results necessary to apply this method in various contexts. In Chapter II, these results are stated, and then applications are given to characterizing the homotopy type of differentiable manifolds and classifying manifolds within a given homotopy type. This theory was first extensively developed in Kervaire and Milnor [34] in the case of homotopy spheres, globalized by S. P. Novikov [49] and the author [6] for closed 1-connected manifolds, and extended to the bounded case by Wall [65] and Golo [23]. The thesis of Sullivan [62] reformed the theory in an elegant way in terms of classifying spaces.

Foundational Essays on Topological Manifolds, Smoothings, and Triangulations

Foundational Essays on Topological Manifolds, Smoothings, and Triangulations PDF

Author: Robion C. Kirby

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1977-05-21

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 9780691081915

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Since Poincaré's time, topologists have been most concerned with three species of manifold. The most primitive of these--the TOP manifolds--remained rather mysterious until 1968, when Kirby discovered his now famous torus unfurling device. A period of rapid progress with TOP manifolds ensued, including, in 1969, Siebenmann's refutation of the Hauptvermutung and the Triangulation Conjecture. Here is the first connected account of Kirby's and Siebenmann's basic research in this area. The five sections of this book are introduced by three articles by the authors that initially appeared between 1968 and 1970. Appendices provide a full discussion of the classification of homotopy tori, including Casson's unpublished work and a consideration of periodicity in topological surgery.

The Topological Classification of Stratified Spaces

The Topological Classification of Stratified Spaces PDF

Author: Shmuel Weinberger

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 9780226885667

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This book provides the theory for stratified spaces, along with important examples and applications, that is analogous to the surgery theory for manifolds. In the first expository account of this field, Weinberger provides topologists with a new way of looking at the classification theory of singular spaces with his original results. Divided into three parts, the book begins with an overview of modern high-dimensional manifold theory. Rather than including complete proofs of all theorems, Weinberger demonstrates key constructions, gives convenient formulations, and shows the usefulness of the technology. Part II offers the parallel theory for stratified spaces. Here, the topological category is most completely developed using the methods of "controlled topology." Many examples illustrating the topological invariance and noninvariance of obstructions and characteristic classes are provided. Applications for embeddings and immersions of manifolds, for the geometry of group actions, for algebraic varieties, and for rigidity theorems are found in Part III. This volume will be of interest to topologists, as well as mathematicians in other fields such as differential geometry, operator theory, and algebraic geometry.

The Hauptvermutung Book

The Hauptvermutung Book PDF

Author: A.A. Ranicki

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-03-09

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 9401733430

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The Hauptvermutung is the conjecture that any two triangulations of a poly hedron are combinatorially equivalent. The conjecture was formulated at the turn of the century, and until its resolution was a central problem of topology. Initially, it was verified for low-dimensional polyhedra, and it might have been expected that furt her development of high-dimensional topology would lead to a verification in all dimensions. However, in 1961 Milnor constructed high-dimensional polyhedra with combinatorially inequivalent triangulations, disproving the Hauptvermutung in general. These polyhedra were not manifolds, leaving open the Hauptvermu tung for manifolds. The development of surgery theory led to the disproof of the high-dimensional manifold Hauptvermutung in the late 1960's. Unfortunately, the published record of the manifold Hauptvermutung has been incomplete, as was forcefully pointed out by Novikov in his lecture at the Browder 60th birthday conference held at Princeton in March 1994. This volume brings together the original 1967 papers of Casson and Sulli van, and the 1968/1972 'Princeton notes on the Hauptvermutung' of Armstrong, Rourke and Cooke, making this work physically accessible. These papers include several other results which have become part of the folklore but of which proofs have never been published. My own contribution is intended to serve as an intro duction to the Hauptvermutung, and also to give an account of some more recent developments in the area. In preparing the original papers for publication, only minimal changes of punctuation etc.

Variations on a Theme of Borel

Variations on a Theme of Borel PDF

Author: Shmuel Weinberger

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-12-08

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1108916848

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In the middle of the last century, after hearing a talk of Mostow on one of his rigidity theorems, Borel conjectured in a letter to Serre a purely topological version of rigidity for aspherical manifolds (i.e. manifolds with contractible universal covers). The Borel conjecture is now one of the central problems of topology with many implications for manifolds that need not be aspherical. Since then, the theory of rigidity has vastly expanded in both precision and scope. This book rethinks the implications of accepting his heuristic as a source of ideas. Doing so leads to many variants of the original conjecture - some true, some false, and some that remain conjectural. The author explores this collection of ideas, following them where they lead whether into rigidity theory in its differential geometric and representation theoretic forms, or geometric group theory, metric geometry, global analysis, algebraic geometry, K-theory, or controlled topology.