Simplicial volume

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== Definition and history ==
== Definition and history ==
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The ''simplicial volume'' is a homotopy invariant of oriented closed connected manifolds that was introduced by Gromov in his proof of Mostow rigidity {{cite|Munkholm1980}}{{cite|Gromov1982}}. Intuitively, the simplicial volume measures how difficult it is to describe the manifold in question in terms of simplices (with real coefficients):
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The $\ell^1$-norm
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=== Non-vanishing results ===
=== Non-vanishing results ===
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== Applications ==
== Applications ==
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Revision as of 15:39, 10 March 2010

An earlier version of this page was published in the Bulletin of the Manifold Atlas: screen, print.

You may view the version used for publication as of 09:51, 1 April 2011 and the changes since publication.


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1 Definition and history

The simplicial volume is a homotopy invariant of oriented closed connected manifolds that was introduced by Gromov in his proof of Mostow rigidity [Munkholm1980][Gromov1982]. Intuitively, the simplicial volume measures how difficult it is to describe the manifold in question in terms of simplices (with real coefficients):

Definition 1.1. Let M be an oriented closed connected manifold of dimension n. Then the simplicial volume (also called Gromov norm) of M is defined as

\displaystyle \|M\| := \inf \bigl\{ \|c\|_1 \bigm| \text{$c \in C_n(M;\mathbb{R})$ is a fundamental cycle of $M$}  \bigr\} \in \mathbb{R}_{\geq 0}.

Here, C_*(M;\mathbb{R}) denotes the singular chain complex of M with real coefficients, and \|\cdot\|_1 denotes the \ell^1-norm on the singular chain complex induced from the (unordered) basis given by all singular simplices; i.e., for a chain c=\sum_{j=0}^k a_j \cdot \sigma_j \in C_*(M;\mathbb{R}) (in reduced form), the \ell^1-norm of c is given by

\displaystyle \|c\|_1 := \sum_{j=0}^k |a_j|.



2 References

This page has not been refereed. The information given here might be incomplete or provisional.

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