A three-dimensional spheroidal space which is not a sphere
In this paper we show that given any 3-manifold and any non-fibered class in there exists a representation such that the corresponding twisted Alexander polynomial is zero. We obtain this result by extending earlier work of ours and by combining this with recent results of Agol and Wise on separability of 3-manifold groups. This result allows us to completely classify symplectic 4-manifolds with a free circle action, and to determine their symplectic cones.
For every n ≥ 2, let cc(ℝⁿ) denote the hyperspace of all nonempty compact convex subsets of the Euclidean space ℝⁿ endowed with the Hausdorff metric topology. Let cb(ℝⁿ) be the subset of cc(ℝⁿ) consisting of all compact convex bodies. In this paper we discover several fundamental properties of the natural action of the affine group Aff(n) on cb(ℝⁿ). We prove that the space E(n) of all n-dimensional ellipsoids is an Aff(n)-equivariant retract of cb(ℝⁿ). This is applied to show that cb(ℝⁿ) is homeomorphic...