Class numbers and periodic smooth maps.
Let Fⁿ be a connected, smooth and closed n-dimensional manifold. We call Fⁿ a manifold with property when it has the following property: if is any smooth closed m-dimensional manifold with m > n and is a smooth involution whose fixed point set is Fⁿ, then m = 2n. Examples of manifolds with this property are: the real, complex and quaternionic even-dimensional projective spaces , and , and the connected sum of and any number of copies of Sⁿ × Sⁿ, where Sⁿ is the n-sphere and n is not...
We show that, if the covering involution of a 3-manifold M occurring as the 2-fold branched covering of a knot in the 3-sphere is contained in a finite nonabelian simple group G of diffeomorphisms of M, then M is a homology 3-sphere and G isomorphic to the alternating or dodecahedral group 𝔸₅ ≅ PSL(2,5). An example of such a 3-manifold is the spherical Poincaré sphere. We construct hyperbolic analogues of the Poincaré sphere. We also give examples of hyperbolic ℤ₂-homology 3-spheres with PSL(2,q)-actions,...