This paper gives a combinatorial description of spin and spin^c-structures on triangulated PL-manifolds of arbitrary dimension. These formulations of spin and spin^c-structures are established primarily for the purpose of aiding in computations. The novelty of the approach is we rely heavily on the naturality of binary symmetric groups to avoid lengthy explicit constructions of smoothings of PL-manifolds.
For a field $mathbb{F}$, the notion of $mathbb{F}$-tightness of simplicial complexes was introduced by Kuhnel. Kuhnel and Lutz conjectured that any $mathbb{F}$-tight triangulation of a closed manifold is the most economic of all possible triangulations of the manifold. The boundary of a triangle is the only $mathbb{F}$-tight triangulation of a closed 1-manifold. A triangulation of a closed 2-manifold is $mathbb{F}$-tight if and only if it is $mathbb{F}$-orientable and neighbourly. In this paper we prove that a triangulation of a closed 3-manifold is $mathbb{F}$-tight if and only if it is $mathbb{F}$-orientable, neighbourly and stacked. In consequence, the Kuhnel-Lutz conjecture is valid in dimension $leq 3$.
Combinatorial Ricci flow on a cusped $3$-manifold is an analogue of Chow-Luos combinatorial Ricci flow on surfaces and Luos combinatorial Ricci flow on compact $3$-manifolds with boundary for finding complete hyperbolic metrics on cusped $3$-manifolds. Dual to Casson and Rivins program of maximizing the volume of angle structures, combinatorial Ricci flow finds the complete hyperbolic metric on a cusped $3$-manifold by minimizing the co-volume of decorated hyperbolic polyhedral metrics. The combinatorial Ricci flow may develop singularities. We overcome this difficulty by extending the flow through the potential singularities using Luo-Yangs extension. It is shown that the existence of a complete hyperbolic metric on a cusped $3$-manifold is equivalent to the convergence of the extended combinatorial Ricci flow, which gives a new characterization of existence of a complete hyperbolic metric on a cusped $3$-manifold dual to Casson and Rivins program. The extended combinatorial Ricci flow also provides an effective algorithm for finding complete hyperbolic metrics on cusped $3$-manifolds.
Combinatorial Ricci flow on an ideally triangulated compact 3-manifold with boundary was introduced by Luo as a 3-dimensional analog of Chow-Luos combinatorial Ricci flow on a triangulated surface and conjectured to find algorithmically the complete hyperbolic metric on the compact 3-manifold with totally geodesic boundary. In this paper, we prove Luos conjecture affirmatively by extending the combinatorial Ricci flow through the singularities of the flow if the ideally triangulated compact 3-manifold with boundary admits such a metric.
Discrete conformal structure on polyhedral surfaces is a discrete analogue of the smooth conformal structure on surfaces that assigns discrete metrics by scalar functions defined on vertices. In this paper, we introduce combinatorial $alpha$-curvature for discrete conformal structures on polyhedral surfaces, which is a parameterized generalization of the classical combinatorial curvature. Then we prove the local and global rigidity of combinatorial $alpha$-curvature with respect to discrete conformal structures on polyhedral surfaces, which confirms parameterized Glickenstein rigidity conjecture. To study the Yamabe problem for combinatorial $alpha$-curvature, we introduce combinatorial $alpha$-Ricci flow for discrete conformal structures on polyhedral surfaces, which is a generalization of Chow-Luos combinatorial Ricci flow for Thurstons circle packings and Luos combinatorial Yamabe flow for vertex scaling on polyhedral surfaces. To handle the potential singularities of the combinatorial $alpha$-Ricci flow, we extend the flow through the singularities by extending the inner angles in triangles by constants. Under the existence of a discrete conformal structure with prescribed combinatorial curvature, the solution of extended combinatorial $alpha$-Ricci flow is proved to exist for all time and converge exponentially fast for any initial value. This confirms a parameterized generalization of another conjecture of Glickenstein on the convergence of combinatorial Ricci flow, gives an almost equivalent characterization of the solvability of Yamabe problem for combinatorial $alpha$-curvature in terms of combinatorial $alpha$-Ricci flow and provides an effective algorithm for finding discrete conformal structures with prescribed combinatorial $alpha$-curvatures.
We derive the topological obstruction to spin-Klein cobordism. This result has implications for signature change in general relativity, and for the $N=2$ superstring.