Curvature properties of exotic spheres
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1 Introduction
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A homotopy sphere of dimensionTex syntax erroris an oriented closed smooth
manifold which is homotopy equivalent to the standard sphere . A homotopy sphere is called an exotic sphere if it not diffeoemorphic to a standard sphere. General information about homotopy spheres (and exotic spheres) is given on Exotic spheres. One prominent question concerning the geometry of exotic spheres is: Given an exotic sphere, are there Riemannian metrics which fulfil specific positivity criteria? One typically considers the following three types.
1 Homotopy spheres with positive sectional curvature
2 Homotopy spheres with positive Ricci curvature
3 Homotopy spheres with positive scalar curvature
Hitchin (based on work of Lichnerowicz) proved that the so-called -invariant of a closed spin manifold provides an obstruction to the existence of a metric of positive scalar curvature on it (cf. [Hitchin1974], [Lichnerowicz1963]). The -invariant for a closedTex syntax error-dimensional spin manifold (compare Spin bordism Invariants) is given as follows: Let the principal -bundle of
Tex syntax error, and let be obtained by adjoining the real Clifford algebra to using the left multiplication of elements in on . The Dirac operator then acts on the space of sections . The kernel of is called the space of (real) harmonic spinors. In case the space of harmonic spinors canonically has the structure of a complex vector space, while
in case the space of harmonic spinors canonically carries the structure of a quarternionic vector space. The space of harmonic spinors yields an element in , the -invariant.
Proposition 7.1. The -invariant of a homotopy sphere is given by
2 References
- [Hitchin1974] N. Hitchin, Harmonic spinors, Advances in Math. 14 (1974), 1–55. MR0358873 (50 #11332) Zbl 0284.58016
- [Lichnerowicz1963] A. Lichnerowicz, Spineurs harmoniques, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris 257 (1963), 7–9. MR0156292 (27 #6218) Zbl 0714.53041