We use some detailed knowledge of the cohomology ring of real Grassmann manifolds Gk(ℝn) to compute zero-divisor cup-length and estimate topological complexity of motion planning for k-linear subspaces in ℝn. In addition, we obtain results about monotonicity of Lusternik–Schnirelmann category and topological complexity of Gk(ℝn) as a function of n.

In [12], John Stillwell wrote, ‘finding the exact strength of the Brouwer invariance theorems seems to me one of the most interesting open problems in reverse mathematics.’ In this article, we solve Stillwell’s problem by showing that (some forms of) the Brouwer invariance theorems are equivalent to the weak König’s lemma over the base system ${\sf RCA}_0$. In particular, there exists an explicit algorithm which, whenever the weak König’s lemma is false, constructs a topological embedding of $\mathbb {R}^4$ into $\mathbb {R}^3$.

We study the existence and concentration of positive solutions for the following class of fractional p-Kirchhoff type problems:

$$ \left\{\begin{array}{@{}ll} \left(\varepsilon^{sp}a+\varepsilon^{2sp-3}b \,[u]_{s, p}^{p}\right)(-\Delta)_{p}^{s}u+V(x)u^{p-1}=f(u) & \text{in}\ \mathbb{R}^{3},\\ \noalign{ u\in W^{s, p}(\mathbb{R}^{3}), \quad u>0 & \text{in}\ \mathbb{R}^{3}, \end{array}\right.$$

$sp \in (\frac {3}{2}, 3)$

$(-\Delta )^{s}_{p}$

The aim of this paper is to show the importance of the Steenrod construction of homology theories for the disassembly process in surgery on a generalized n-manifold Xn, in order to produce an element of generalized homology theory, which is basic for calculations. In particular, we show how to construct an element of the nth Steenrod homology group $H^{st}_{n} (X^{n}, \mathbb {L}^+)$, where 𝕃+ is the connected covering spectrum of the periodic surgery spectrum 𝕃, avoiding the use of the geometric splitting procedure, the use of which is standard in surgery on topological manifolds.

We show that provided that n is a power of two, any nD measures in ℝn can be bisected by an arrangement of D hyperplanes.

We show that various classes of products of manifolds do not support transitive Anosov diffeomorphisms. Exploiting the Ruelle–Sullivan cohomology class, we prove that the product of a negatively curved manifold with a rational homology sphere does not support transitive Anosov diffeomorphisms. We extend this result to products of finitely many negatively curved manifolds of dimension at least three with a rational homology sphere that has vanishing simplicial volume. As an application of this study, we obtain new examples of manifolds that do not support transitive Anosov diffeomorphisms, including certain manifolds with non-trivial higher homotopy groups and certain products of aspherical manifolds.

An isotopic to the identity map of the 2-torus, that has zero rotation vector with respect to an invariant ergodic probability measure, has a fixed point by a theorem of Franks. We give a version of this result for nilpotent subgroups of isotopic to the identity diffeomorphisms of the 2-torus. In such a context we guarantee the existence of global fixed points for nilpotent groups of irrotational diffeomorphisms. In particular, we show that the derived group of a nilpotent group of isotopic to the identity diffeomorphisms of the 2-torus has a global fixed point.

The Lusternik–Schnirelmann categorycat and topological complexityTC are related homotopy invariants. The topological complexityTC has applications to the robot motion planning problem. We calculate the Lusternik–Schnirelmann category and topological complexity of the ordered configuration space of two distinct points in the product $G\times \mathbb{R}^{n}$ and apply the results to the planar and spatial motion of two rigid bodies in $\mathbb{R}^{2}$ and $\mathbb{R}^{3}$ respectively.

We define a Grothendieck ring of varieties with actions of finite groups and show that the orbifold Euler characteristic and the Euler characteristics of higher orders can be defined as homomorphisms from this ring to the ring of integers. We describe two natural λ-structures on the ring and the corresponding power structures over it and show that one of these power structures is effective. We define a Grothendieck ring of varieties with equivariant vector bundles and show that the generalized (‘motivic’) Euler characteristics of higher orders can be defined as homomorphisms from this ring to the Grothendieck ring of varieties extended by powers of the class of the complex affine line. We give an analogue of the Macdonald type formula for the generating series of the generalized higher-order Euler characteristics of wreath products.

An n-dimensional analogue of the Klein bottle arose in our study of topological complexity of planar polygon spaces. We determine its integral cohomology algebra and stable homotopy type, and give an explicit immersion and embedding in Euclidean space.

In this paper, we investigate free actions of some compact groups on cohomology real and complex Milnor manifolds. More precisely, we compute the mod 2 cohomology algebra of the orbit space of an arbitrary free ℤ2 and $\mathbb{S}^1$-action on a compact Hausdorff space with mod 2 cohomology algebra of a real or a complex Milnor manifold. As applications, we deduce some Borsuk–Ulam type results for equivariant maps between spheres and these spaces. For the complex case, we obtain a lower bound on the Schwarz genus, which further establishes the existence of coincidence points for maps to the Euclidean plane.

We study Lusternik–Schnirelmann type categories for isolated invariant sets by the use of the discrete Conley index.

This work is motivated by the question of whether there are spaces X for which the Farber–Grant symmetric topological complexity TCS(X) differs from the Basabe–González–Rudyak–Tamaki symmetric topological complexity TCΣ(X). For a projective space ${\open R}\hbox{P}^m$, it is known that $\hbox{TC}^S ({\open R}\hbox{P}^{m})$ captures, with a few potential exceptional cases, the Euclidean embedding dimension of ${\open R}\hbox{P}^{m}$. We now show that, for all m≥1, $\hbox{TC}^{\Sigma}({\open R}\hbox{P}^{m})$ is characterized as the smallest positive integer n for which there is a symmetric ${\open Z}_{2}$-biequivariant map Sm×Sm→Sn with a ‘monoidal’ behaviour on the diagonal. This result thus lies at the core of the efforts in the 1970s to characterize the embedding dimension of real projective spaces in terms of the existence of symmetric axial maps. Together with Nakaoka's description of the cohomology ring of symmetric squares, this allows us to compute both TC numbers in the case of ${\open R}\hbox{P}^{2^{e}}$ for e≥1. In particular, this leaves the torus S1×S1 as the only closed surface whose symmetric (symmetrized) TCS (TCΣ) invariant is currently unknown.

We prove that any cyclic quadrilateral can be inscribed in any closed convex $C^{1}$ -curve. The smoothness condition is not required if the quadrilateral is a rectangle.

Let G be a finite group acting freely on a finitistic space X having cohomology type (0, b) (for example, $\mathbb S$n × $\mathbb S$2n is a space of type (0, 1) and the one-point union $\mathbb S$n ∨ $\mathbb S$2n ∨ $\mathbb S$3n is a space of type (0, 0)). It is known that a finite group G that contains ℤp ⊕ ℤp ⊕ ℤp, p a prime, cannot act freely on $\mathbb S$n × $\mathbb S$2n. In this paper, we show that if a finite group G acts freely on a space of type (0, 1), where n is odd, then G cannot contain ℤp ⊕ ℤp, p an odd prime. For spaces of cohomology type (0, 0), we show that every p-subgroup of G is either cyclic or a generalized quaternion group. Moreover, for n even, it is shown that ℤ2 is the only group that can act freely on X.

In this paper, we show that for every nonnilpotent hyperbolic map $f$ on an infra-nilmanifold, the set $\operatorname{HPer}(f)$ is cofinite in $\mathbb{N}$. This is a generalization of a similar result for expanding maps in Lee and Zhao (J. Math. Soc. Japan 59(1) (2007), 179–184). Moreover, we prove that for every nilpotent map $f$ on an infra-nilmanifold, $\operatorname{HPer}(f)=\{1\}$.

We study the set $D(M,N)$ of all possible mapping degrees from $M$ to $N$ when $M$ and $N$ are quasitoric $4$ -manifolds. In some of the cases, we completely describe this set. Our results rely on Theorems proved by Duan and Wang and the sets of integers obtained are interesting from the number theoretical point of view, for example those representable as the sum of two squares $D(\mathbb{C}P^{2}\sharp \mathbb{C}P^{2},\mathbb{C}P^{2})$ or the sum of three squares $D(\mathbb{C}P^{2}\sharp \mathbb{C}P^{2}\sharp \mathbb{C}P^{2},\mathbb{C}P^{2})$ . In addition to the general results about the mapping degrees between quasitoric 4-manifolds, we establish connections between Duan and Wang’s approach, quadratic forms, number theory and lattices.

The Lusternik–Schnirelmann category of the quaternionic Grassmannian

is known to be k(n − k). In this paper we show that this result can be deduced from Morse theory.

The aim of this work is to represent the elements of the homotopy classes of maps from S2 to S2 ∨ S1 by maps with some minimality root properties.

Let E → B be a fibre bundle and let Eʹ → B be a vector bundle. Let G be a compact Lie group acting fibre preservingly and freely on both E and Eʹ – 0, where 0 is the zero section of Eʹ → B. Let f : E → Eʹ be a fibre-preserving G-equivariant map and let Zf = {x ∈ E | f(x) = 0} be the zero set of f. In this paper we give a lower bound for the cohomological dimension of the zero set Zf when a fibre of E → B is a real Stiefel manifold with a free ℤ/2-action or a complex Stiefel manifold with a free 𝕊1-action. This generalizes a well-known result of Dold for sphere bundles equipped with free involutions.