On fibrations with the Grassmann manifold of two-planes as fiber.
Let G be a compact connected Lie group and p: E → ΣA be a principal G-bundle with a characteristic map α: A → G, where A = ΣA₀ for some A₀. Let with F₀ = ∗, F₁ = ΣK₁ and Fₘ ≃ G be a cone-decomposition of G of length m and F’₁ = ΣK’₁ ⊂ F₁ with K’₁ ⊂ K₁ which satisfy up to homotopy for all i. Then cat(E) ≤ m + 1, under suitable conditions, which is used to determine cat(SO(10)). A similar result was obtained by Kono and the first author (2007) to determine cat(Spin(9)), but that result could not...
We calculate the structure sets in the sense of surgery theory of total spaces of bundles over eight-dimensional sphere with fibre a seven-dimensional sphere, in which manifolds homotopy equivalent to the total spaces are organized, and we investigate the question, which of the elements in these structure sets can be realized as such bundles.
Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of -dimensional oriented vector bundles () over CW-complexes of dimension with prescribed Stiefel-Whitney classes , and Pontrjagin class are found. As a consequence some results on the span of 6 and 7-dimensional oriented vector bundles are given in terms of characteristic classes.