Applications of algebra to

a problem in topology

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 Joint work with

Mike Hill
and

Doug Ravenel

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 Pontryagin (1930’s)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 Pontryagin (1930’s)

cobordism group of stably

framed k-manifolds

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 Pontryagin (1930’s)

k=0

k=1

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 Pontryagin (1930s) k=2

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 Pontryagin (1930s) k=2

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 Pontryagin (1930s) k=2

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 Pontryagin (1930s) This defines a fuction

If genus , and so

You can always lower the genus with surgery

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 Pontryagin (?)

is not linear

it’s quadratic and refines

the intersection pairing

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 Pontryagin (?)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 Kervaire (1960)
(framed)

defined

quadratic refinement of the intersection pairing

showed

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 Kervaire (1960)

produced a piecewise linear

with

hence has no smooth structure

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 Browder (1969)

there exists
represented by

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 Barratt-Jones-Mahowald (1969, 1984)

The elements exist dimensions

for

so the first open dimension is 126

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 The Kervaire invariant problem

In which dimensions can

be non-zero?

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 Doomsday Theorem (Hill, H., Ravenel)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 Adams-Novikov
Spectral Sequence

Something easier
to compute

Adams Spectral
Sequence

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
 Adams-Novikov
Spectral Sequence

Something easier
to compute

Adams Spectral
Sequence

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
 for supports a
non-zero differential

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 Adams-Novikov
Spectral Sequence

Something easier
to compute

Adams Spectral
Sequence

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
 periodicity Theorem

Rochlin’s Theorem

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 K-theory and reality (Atiyah, 1966)

space with a action

vector bundles with

compatible conjugate-
linear action

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 slice filtration
(Dugger, Hu-Kriz, H.-Morel, Voevodsky)

Assemble K-theory
from the equivariant
chains on

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 slice filtration

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
 periodicity

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 periodicity

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 level 5 topological modular forms

Like with instead of

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
 32
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 32
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
 2 below the
the period
period

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 2 below the
the period
period

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 slice filtration

Assemble tmf(5) from

the equivariant chains
on

the 4 dimensional real

regular representation of

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009
 -2 0

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 2 below the the period
period

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 gap + periodicity

differentials on the

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 The actual proof

Step 1: Use and an appropriate

cohomology theory

Step 2: Show that all the choices of

are distinguished

Step 3: Prove a gap theorem (easy)

Step 4: Prove a periodicity theorem (of period 256)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

 Relation to Geometry/Physics?

4 dimensional field theory?

generalization of Clifford algebras with

periodicity of
(maybe twice that)

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 Question

Tuesday, April 21, 2009