Talk:Intersection form of a 4-manifold

non-orientable
If the manifold is non-orientable then H^4 is going to be torsion and therefore the intersection integer is necessarily zero. Am I missing something? Katzmik (talk) 08:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * No. And actually none of it makes sense since there is no integral fundamental class either.  --C S (talk)

P.S. Donaldson's theorem is stated incorrectly. It applies to DEFINITE intersection forms! For example, a K3 surface is simply connected but not diagonalizable. Katzmik (talk) 09:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, you are correct. R.e.b. has already made the corrections, including perhaps one unnecessary one.  I always assume spin manifold includes smooth structure.  But perhaps some people use "spin manifold" loosely to mean the second SW class is zero.  --C S (talk) 04:40, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Representing 2nd homology classes by (embedded) surfaces
I have a remark and some (implicit) questions on the most recent edit replacing "embedded" by "immersed". Now I realize that for smooth 4-manifolds, there is a standard unobvious argument to show every element of the 2nd homology can be represented by an embedded surface. Of course there is an approximation theorem (due to Whitney?) which states (in our context) any smooth map of a surface into a 4-manifold can be approximated by an immersion.

So R.e.b.'s edit summary stated "...it is not easy to make the surfaces embedded rather than immersed", but I think morally, the embedded version is not really any harder than the immersed version. You can argue using simplicial homology that there must be a surface representative. This is not difficult. Realize each 2-simplex geometrically with ones representing the same face being nearly parallel except at the edges. Then simply resolve the the intersections along edges, then use existence of Seifert surfaces for links in the 3-sphere to resolve at the vertices (the smooth and PL categories are the same for 4-manifolds). The 4-manifold texts don't seem to mention this, but this is essentially the same argument one makes in 3-dimensions.

It appears to me people only make such statements for smooth 4-manifolds. But the immersed version is certainly true for the topological case. One uses the fact that the complement of a point in a 4-manifold has a smooth structure. Then run the usual argument. So that's one advantage of making the statement with immersed surfaces. I don't know a way to get the embedded statement for the topological case, and perhaps that's impossible without restrictions on the fundamental group. --C S (talk) 15:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)


 * In the case of topological manifolds this is true, but is a very deep theorem. Even in the smooth case it takes some non-trivial work to make the surfaces embedded. Allowing surfaces to be immersed (or 2-cycles) is an easy way to eliminate this problem. R.e.b. (talk) 16:11, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

More on orientation
I should mention that just as there is a version of Poincare duality for Z_2 coefficients, there is also a version of the intersection form with Z_2 coefficients. Naturally it takes values in Z_2 rather than in Z. In this way non-orientable manifolds get an intersection form as well. Of course one does not see any of this in de Rham cohomology. Katzmik (talk) 09:11, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

de Rham cohomology of topological manifolds
It is perhaps worth mentioning that while it is true that de Rham cohomology cannot be defined directly on a manifold without a smooth structure, it can be defined less than directly. Namely, a compact topological manifold is homotopy equivalent to a CW complex. The latter by standard theory is homotopy equivalent to a simplicial complex. The simplicial complex will not in general be homeomorphic to a manifold, but at any rate one can define differential forms on it and one can form the differential complex which will then define the de Rham cohomology. This approach was developed most recently in a paper of Ivan Babenko in the context of a systolic problem. Katzmik (talk) 11:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

This approach was applied since 1970s to rational homotopy theory, see P. Griffths and J. Morgan, Rational Homotopy Theory and Differential Forms, 2013, Birkhäuser. (Askopenkov, 18 March 2019)

Wu's class
The mod 2 intersection form Q gives a quadratic form q(v)=Q(v,v). The latter turns out to be linear since c^2=c in Z/2Z. Thus q must be given by the pairing with a certain vector. This vector is called Wu's vector. Any (integer) vector whose mod 2 reduction is Wu's vector, is called a characteristic vector. As an application, one gets an easy proof of Donaldson's theorem using Seiberg-Witten invariants. It should be checked that what I said is true for non-orientable manifolds, as well. Katzmik (talk) 12:41, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Symbols
What does $$\langle a\smile b,[M]\rangle$$ in the definition mean? --Anton (talk) 13:28, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The brackets indicate evaluation of the left thing on the right thing (strictly speaking, you pick representatives in the resp. (co)homology classes and then evaluate). That's a pretty standard notation for linear functionals, cohomology/homology pairing, etc.  --C S (talk) 18:54, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Its a cup product, there's a whole article for it. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 04:42, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 26 August 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved per request. Favonian (talk) 15:17, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Intersection form (4-manifold) → Intersection form of a 4-manifold – WP:NATURALDIS, and not a distinct concept from the kind defined in Intersection theory. I'd prefer that 4-manifold be plural, but it proved too awkward to square with the singular form required for the head of the noun phrase. If moved, the disambiguation page Intersection form will be redirected to Intersection_theory. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 05:26, 26 August 2021 (UTC) — Relisting.  ASUKITE  16:06, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Mathematics has been notified of this discussion. ASUKITE  16:06, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support: The proposed title is a natural one (thereby satisfying WP:NATURALDIS as noted in the proposal), as is the disambiguation redirect. — MarkH21talk 04:14, 5 September 2021 (UTC)