Characteristic Classes for the Degenerations of Two-Plane Fields in Four Dimensions
| dc.creator | Kazarian, Maxim | |
| dc.creator | Montgomery, Richard | |
| dc.creator | Shapiro, Boris | |
| dc.date | 1997-04-02 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T09:13:03Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T09:13:03Z | |
| dc.description | There is a remarkable type of field of two-planes special to four dimensions known as an Engel distributions. They are the only stable regular distributions besides the contact, quasi-contact and line fields. If an arbitrary two-plane field on a four-manifold is slightly perturbed then it will be Engel at generic points. On the other hand, if a manifold admits an oriented Engel structure then the manifold must be parallelizable and consequently the alleged Engel distribution must have a degeneration loci -- a point set where the Engel conditions fails. By a theorem of Zhitomirskii this locus is a finite union of surfaces. We prove that these surfaces represent Chern classes associated to the distribution. | |
| dc.description | LaTeX, 15 pages | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/dg-ga/9704001 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/dg-ga/9704001 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/152231 | |
| dc.subject | Differential Geometry | |
| dc.subject | 58A30 | |
| dc.title | Characteristic Classes for the Degenerations of Two-Plane Fields in Four Dimensions | |
| dc.type | text |