Let ξ be an oriented 8-dimensional spin vector bundle over an 8-complex. In this paper we give necessary and sufficient conditions for ξ to have 4 linearly independent sections or to be a sum of two 4-dimensional spin vector bundles, in terms of characteristic classes and higher order cohomology operations. On closed connected spin smooth 8-manifolds these operations can be computed.
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.
Let ξ be an oriented 8-dimensional vector bundle. We prove that the structure group SO(8) of ξ can be reduced to Sp(2) or Sp(2) · Sp(1) if and only if the vector bundle associated to ξ via a certain outer automorphism of the group Spin(8) has 3 linearly independent sections or contains a 3-dimensional subbundle. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an Sp(2)- structure in ξ over a closed connected spin manifold of dimension 8 are also given in terms of characteristic classes.
Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of two linearly independent sections in an 8-dimensional spin vector bundle over a CW-complex of the same dimension are given in terms of characteristic classes and a certain secondary cohomology operation. In some cases this operation is computed.
In this note we give examples in every dimension of piecewise linearly homeomorphic, closed, connected, smooth -manifolds which admit two smoothness structures with differing spans, stable spans, and immersion co-dimensions. In dimension the examples include the total spaces of certain -sphere bundles over . The construction of such manifolds is based on the topological variance of the second Pontrjagin class: a fact which goes back to Milnor and which was used by Roitberg to give examples...
Let r = 3, 4, ... , ∞, ω. The Cr-Carathéodory's Conjecture states that every Cr convex embedding of a 2-sphere into R3 must have at least two umbilics. The Cr-Loewner's conjecture (stronger than the one of Carathéodory) states that there are no umbilics of index bigger than one. We show that these two conjectures are equivalent to others about planar vector fields. For instance, if r ≠ ω, Cr-Carathéodory's Conjecture is equivalent to the following one:Let ρ > 0 and β: U ⊂ R2 → R, be of class...