Rational homotopy of the space of immersions between manifolds

Abstract

In this paper we study the rational homotopy of the space of immersions, $Imm\left(M,N\right)$, of a manifold $M$ of dimension $m\ge 0$ into a manifold $N$ of dimension $m+k$, with $k\ge 2$. In the special case when $N={\mathbb{R}}^{m+k}$ and $k$ is odd we prove that each connected component of $Imm\left(M,{\mathbb{R}}^{m+k}\right)$ has the rational homotopy type of product of Eilenberg Mac Lane space. We give an explicit description of each connected component and prove that it only depends on $m$, $k$ and the rational Betti numbers of $M$. For a more general manifold $N$, we prove that the path connected of $Imm\left(M,N\right)$ has the rational homotopy type of some component of an explicit mapping space when some Pontryagin classes vanishes.

arXiv comment29 pages