The main result of this paper is a new and direct proof of the natural transformation from the surgery exact sequence in topology to the analytic K-theory sequence of Higson and Roe. Our approach makes crucial use of analytic properties and new ind
ex theorems for the signature operator on Galois coverings with boundary. These are of independent interest and form the second main theme of the paper. The main technical novelty is the use of large scale index theory for Dirac type operators that are perturbed by lower order operators.
We study the topology of the space of positive scalar curvature metrics on high dimensional spheres and other spin manifolds. Our main result provides elements of infinite order in higher homotopy and homology groups of these spaces, which, in contra
st to previous approaches, are of infinite order and survive in the (observer) moduli space of such metrics. Along the way we construct smooth fiber bundles over spheres whose total spaces have non-vanishing A-hat-genera, thus establishing the non-multiplicativity of the A-hat-genus in fibre bundles with simply connected base.
The main aim of this paper is the construction of a smooth (sometimes called differential) extension hat{MU} of the cohomology theory complex cobordism MU, using cycles for hat{MU}(M) which are essentially proper maps Wto M with a fixed U(n)-structur
e and U(n)-connection on the (stable) normal bundle of Wto M. Crucial is that this model allows the construction of a product structure and of pushdown maps for this smooth extension of MU, which have all the expected properties. Moreover, we show, using the Landweber exact functor principle, that hat{R}(M):=hat{MU}(M)otimes_{MU^*}R defines a multiplicative smooth extension of R(M):=MU(M)otimes_{MU^*}R whenever R is a Landweber exact MU*-module. An example for this construction is a new way to define a multiplicative smooth K-theory.
The main result of this note is a parametrized version of the Borsuk-Ulam theorem. We show that for a continuous family of Borsuk-Ulam situations, parameterized by points of a compact manifold W, its solution set also depends continuously on the para
meter space W. Continuity here means that the solution set supports a homology class which maps onto the fundamental class of W. When W is a subset of Euclidean space, we also show how to construct such a continuous family starting from a family depending in the same way continuously on the points of the boundary of W. This solves a problem related to a conjecture which is relevant for the construction of equilibrium strategies in repeated two-player games with incomplete information. A new method (of independent interest) used in this context is a canonical symmetric squaring construction in Cech homology with coefficients in Z/2Z.
Generalized differential cohomology theories, in particular differential K-theory (often called smooth K-theory), are becoming an important tool in differential geometry and in mathematical physics. In this survey, we describe the developments of the
recent decades in this area. In particular, we discuss axiomatic characterizations of differential K-theory (and that these uniquely characterize differential K-theory). We describe several explicit constructions, based on vector bundles, on families of differential operators, or using homotopy theory and classifying spaces. We explain the most important properties, in particular about the multiplicative structure and push-forward maps and will sta
The initial motivation of this work was to give a topological interpretation of two-periodic twisted de-Rham cohomology which is generalizable to arbitrary coefficients. To this end we develop a sheaf theory in the context of locally compact topologi
cal stacks with emphasis on the construction of the sheaf theory operations in unbounded derived categories, elements of Verdier duality and integration. The main result is the construction of a functorial periodization functor associated to a U(1)-gerbe. As applications we verify the $T$-duality isomorphism in periodic twisted cohomology and in periodic twisted orbispace cohomology.
Let G be a compact Lie-group, X a compact G-CW-complex. We define equivariant geometric K-homology groups K^G_*(X), using an obvious equivariant version of the (M,E,f)-picture of Baum-Douglas for K-homology. We define explicit natural transformations
to and from equivariant K-homology defined via KK-theory (the official equivariant K-homology groups) and show that these are isomorphism.
In this paper we compute the Galois cohomology of the pro-p completion of primitive link groups. Here, a primitive link group is the fundamental group of a tame link in the 3-sphere whose linking number diagram is irreducible modulo p (e.g. none of t
he linking numbers is divisible by p). The result is that (with Z/pZ-coefficients) the Galois cohomology is naturally isomorphic to the Z/pZ-cohomology of the discrete link group. The main application of this result is that for such groups the Baum-Connes conjecture or the Atiyah conjecture are true for every finite extension (or even every elementary amenable extension), if they are true for the group itself.
