Stein fillable manifolds and stably complex homotopy spheres

Diarmuid Crowley (University of Aberdeen)

Wednesday 22nd October, 2014 16:30-17:30 Maths 516

Abstract

An almost contact structure on a (2q+1)-manifold M is a reduction of its structure group of M to unitary group U(q).  A special class of almost contact structure arise when M is the boundary of a Stein domain.

I this talk I will show how Eliashberg's h-principle for Stein domains leads to a bordism-theoretic characterisation of Stein fillable almost contact manifolds.  

As an example, I report on a new theorem that the (8k-1)-sphere admits non-Stein fillable almost contact structures so long as k > 1.  The proof uses on a number theoretic result about Bernoulli numbers.

This work is joint with Jonathan Bowden and Andras Stipsicz and Bernd Kellner.

Add to your calendar

Download event information as iCalendar file (only this event)