Proceedings - Mathematical Sciences

, Volume 122, Issue 1, pp 79–86 | Cite as

The cohomology of orbit spaces of certain free circle group actions

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Abstract

Suppose that \(G =\mathbb{S}^1\) acts freely on a finitistic space X whose (mod p) cohomology ring is isomorphic to that of a lens space \(L^{2m-1}(p;q_1,\ldots,q_m)\) or \(\mathbb{S}^1\times \mathbb{C}P^{m-1}\). The mod p index of the action is defined to be the largest integer n such that α n  ≠ 0, where \(\alpha \,\epsilon\, H^2(X/G;\mathbb{Z}_p)\) is the nonzero characteristic class of the \(\mathbb{S}^1\)-bundle \(\mathbb{S}^1\hookrightarrow X\rightarrow X/G\). We show that the mod p index of a free action of G on \(\mathbb{S}^1\times \mathbb{C}P^{m-1}\) is p − 1, when it is defined. Using this, we obtain a Borsuk–Ulam type theorem for a free G-action on \(\mathbb{S}^1\times \mathbb{C}P^{m-1}\). It is note worthy that the mod p index for free G-actions on the cohomology lens space is not defined.

Keywords

Characteristic class finitistic space free action index spectral sequence 
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Copyright information

© Indian Academy of Sciences 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of MathematicsUniversity of DelhiDelhiIndia

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