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Intersection Form (4-manifold)
In mathematics, the intersection form of an oriented compact 4-manifold is a special symmetric bilinear form on the 2nd (co)homology group of the 4-manifold. It reflects much of the topology of the 4-manifolds, including information on the existence of a smooth structure. Definition using intersection Let ''M'' be a closed 4-manifold (PL or smooth). Take a triangulation ''T'' of ''M''. Denote by T^* the dual cell subdivision. Represent classes a,b\in H_2(M;\Z/2\Z) by 2-cycles ''A'' and ''B'' modulo 2 viewed as unions of 2-simplices of ''T'' and of T^*, respectively. Define the intersection form modulo 2 :\cap_: H_2(M;\Z/2\Z) \times H_2(M;\Z/2\Z) \to \Z/2\Z by the formula :a\cap_ b = , A\cap B, \bmod2. This is well-defined because the intersection of a cycle and a boundary consists of an even number of points (by definition of a cycle and a boundary). If ''M'' is oriented, analogously (i.e. counting intersections with signs) one defines the intersection form on the 2n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics with the major subdisciplines of number theory, algebra, geometry, and analysis, respectively. There is no general consensus among mathematicians about a common definition for their academic discipline. Most mathematical activity involves the discovery of properties of abstract objects and the use of pure reason to prove them. These objects consist of either abstractions from nature orin modern mathematicsentities that are stipulated to have certain properties, called axioms. A ''proof'' consists of a succession of applications of deductive rules to already established results. These results include previously proved theorems, axioms, andin case of abstraction from naturesome basic properties that are considered true starting points of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spin Structure
In differential geometry, a spin structure on an orientable Riemannian manifold allows one to define associated spinor bundles, giving rise to the notion of a spinor in differential geometry. Spin structures have wide applications to mathematical physics, in particular to quantum field theory where they are an essential ingredient in the definition of any theory with uncharged fermions. They are also of purely mathematical interest in differential geometry, algebraic topology, and K theory. They form the foundation for spin geometry. Overview In geometry and in field theory, mathematicians ask whether or not a given oriented Riemannian manifold (''M'',''g'') admits spinors. One method for dealing with this problem is to require that ''M'' has a spin structure. This is not always possible since there is potentially a topological obstruction to the existence of spin structures. Spin structures will exist if and only if the second Stiefel–Whitney class ''w''2(''M'') ∈ H2(''M'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, advocacy and other programs. The society is one of the four parts of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics and a member of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences. History The AMS was founded in 1888 as the New York Mathematical Society, the brainchild of Thomas Fiske, who was impressed by the London Mathematical Society on a visit to England. John Howard Van Amringe was the first president and Fiske became secretary. The society soon decided to publish a journal, but ran into some resistance, due to concerns about competing with the American Journal of Mathematics. The result was the ''Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society'', with Fiske as editor-in-chief. The de facto journal, as intended, was influential in in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
E8 Manifold
In mathematics, the ''E''8 manifold is the unique compact, simply connected topological 4-manifold with intersection form the ''E''8 lattice. History The E_8 manifold was discovered by Michael Freedman in 1982. Rokhlin's theorem shows that it has no smooth structure (as does Donaldson's theorem), and in fact, combined with the work of Andrew Casson on the Casson invariant, this shows that the E_8 manifold is not even triangulable as a simplicial complex. Construction The manifold can be constructed by first plumbing together disc bundles of Euler number 2 over the sphere, according to the Dynkin diagram for E_8. This results in P_, a 4-manifold with boundary equal to the Poincaré homology sphere. Freedman's theorem on fake 4-balls then says we can cap off this homology sphere with a fake 4-ball to obtain the E_8 manifold. See also * * * References * * {{DEFAULTSORT:E8 Manifold 4-manifolds Geometric topology Manifold In mathematics, a manifold is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donaldson's Theorem
In mathematics, and especially differential topology and gauge theory, Donaldson's theorem states that a definite intersection form of a compact, oriented, smooth manifold of dimension 4 is diagonalisable. If the intersection form is positive (negative) definite, it can be diagonalized to the identity matrix (negative identity matrix) over the . The original version of the theorem required the manifold to be simply connected, but it was later improved to apply to 4-manifolds with any fundamental group. History The theorem was proved by Simon Donaldson. This was a contribution cited for his Fields medal in 1986. Idea of proof Donaldson's proof utilizes the moduli space \mathcal_P of solutions to the anti-self-duality equations on a principal \operatorname(2)-bundle P over the four-manifold X. By the Atiyah–Singer index theorem, the dimension of the moduli space is given by :\dim \mathcal = 8k - 3(1-b_1(X) + b_+(X)), where c_2(P)=k, b_1(X) is the first Betti number of X and b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Freedman
Michael Hartley Freedman (born April 21, 1951) is an American mathematician, at Microsoft Station Q, a research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1986, he was awarded a Fields Medal for his work on the 4-dimensional generalized Poincaré conjecture. Freedman and Robion Kirby showed that an exotic ℝ4 manifold exists. Life and career Freedman was born in Los Angeles, California, in the United States. His father, Benedict Freedman, was an American Jewish aeronautical engineer, musician, writer, and mathematician. His mother, Nancy Mars Freedman, performed as an actress and also trained as an artist. His parents cowrote a series of novels together. . He entered the University of California, Berkeley, but dropped out after two semesters. In the same year he wrote a letter to Ralph Fox, a Princeton professor at the time, and was admitted to graduate school so in 1968 he continued his studies at Princeton University where he received Ph.D. degree in 1973 fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rokhlin's Theorem
In 4-dimensional topology, a branch of mathematics, Rokhlin's theorem states that if a smooth, closed 4-manifold ''M'' has a spin structure (or, equivalently, the second Stiefel–Whitney class w_2(M) vanishes), then the signature of its intersection form, a quadratic form on the second cohomology group H^2(M), is divisible by 16. The theorem is named for Vladimir Rokhlin, who proved it in 1952. Examples *The intersection form on ''M'' ::Q_M\colon H^2(M,\Z)\times H^2(M,\Z)\rightarrow \mathbb :is unimodular on \Z by Poincaré duality, and the vanishing of w_2(M) implies that the intersection form is even. By a theorem of Cahit Arf, any even unimodular lattice has signature divisible by 8, so Rokhlin's theorem forces one extra factor of 2 to divide the signature. *A K3 surface is compact, 4 dimensional, and w_2(M) vanishes, and the signature is −16, so 16 is the best possible number in Rokhlin's theorem. *A complex surface in \mathbb^3 of degree d is spin if and only if d is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simply Connected Space
In topology, a topological space is called simply connected (or 1-connected, or 1-simply connected) if it is path-connected and every path between two points can be continuously transformed (intuitively for embedded spaces, staying within the space) into any other such path while preserving the two endpoints in question. The fundamental group of a topological space is an indicator of the failure for the space to be simply connected: a path-connected topological space is simply connected if and only if its fundamental group is trivial. Definition and equivalent formulations A topological space X is called if it is path-connected and any loop in X defined by f : S^1 \to X can be contracted to a point: there exists a continuous map F : D^2 \to X such that F restricted to S^1 is f. Here, S^1 and D^2 denotes the unit circle and closed unit disk in the Euclidean plane respectively. An equivalent formulation is this: X is simply connected if and only if it is path-connected, and whene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unimodular Form
In mathematics, a bilinear form is a bilinear map on a vector space (the elements of which are called '' vectors'') over a field ''K'' (the elements of which are called ''scalars''). In other words, a bilinear form is a function that is linear in each argument separately: * and * and The dot product on \R^n is an example of a bilinear form. The definition of a bilinear form can be extended to include modules over a ring, with linear maps replaced by module homomorphisms. When is the field of complex numbers , one is often more interested in sesquilinear forms, which are similar to bilinear forms but are conjugate linear in one argument. Coordinate representation Let be an -dimensional vector space with basis . The matrix ''A'', defined by is called the ''matrix of the bilinear form'' on the basis . If the matrix represents a vector with respect to this basis, and analogously, represents another vector , then: B(\mathbf, \mathbf) = \mathbf^\textsf A\mathbf = \ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
4-manifold
In mathematics, a 4-manifold is a 4-dimensional topological manifold. A smooth 4-manifold is a 4-manifold with a smooth structure. In dimension four, in marked contrast with lower dimensions, topological and smooth manifolds are quite different. There exist some topological 4-manifolds which admit no smooth structure, and even if there exists a smooth structure, it need not be unique (i.e. there are smooth 4-manifolds which are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic). 4-manifolds are important in physics because in General Relativity, spacetime is modeled as a pseudo-Riemannian 4-manifold. Topological 4-manifolds The homotopy type of a simply connected compact 4-manifold only depends on the intersection form on the middle dimensional homology. A famous theorem of implies that the homeomorphism type of the manifold only depends on this intersection form, and on a \Z/2\Z invariant called the Kirby–Siebenmann invariant, and moreover that every combination of unimodular form and Ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exterior Algebra
In mathematics, the exterior algebra, or Grassmann algebra, named after Hermann Grassmann, is an algebra that uses the exterior product or wedge product as its multiplication. In mathematics, the exterior product or wedge product of vectors is an algebraic construction used in geometry to study areas, volumes, and their higher-dimensional analogues. The exterior product of two vectors u and v, denoted by u \wedge v, is called a bivector and lives in a space called the ''exterior square'', a vector space that is distinct from the original space of vectors. The magnitude of u \wedge v can be interpreted as the area of the parallelogram with sides u and v, which in three dimensions can also be computed using the cross product of the two vectors. More generally, all parallel plane surfaces with the same orientation and area have the same bivector as a measure of their oriented area. Like the cross product, the exterior product is anticommutative, meaning t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
