Lee Kennard (UCSB): On Chern's question with symmetry

Event Date: 

Friday, November 8, 2013 - 3:00pm to 4:00pm

Event Location: 

  • 6635 South Hall

Event Contact: 

Lee Kennard

Email: kennard@math.ucsb.edu

In 1965, Chern asked the following: If M is a compact manifold with positive sectional curvature, is every abelian subgroup of the fundamental group cyclic? Shankar proved in 1998 that the answer is no. I wil discuss conditions under which the answer is yes. The proof involves three obstructions to free actions on positively curved rational homology spheres.