We study the question of existence of a Riemannian metric of positive scalar
curvature metric on manifolds with the Sullivan–Baas singularities. The manifolds
we consider are Spin and simply connected. We prove an analogue of the
Gromov–Lawson Conjecture for such manifolds in the case of particular type of
singularities. We give an affirmative answer when such manifolds with singularities
accept a metric of positive scalar curvature in terms of the index of the Dirac
operator valued in the corresponding “K–theories with singularities”. The key ideas
are based on the construction due to Stolz, some stable homotopy theory, and the
index theory for the Dirac operator applied to the manifolds with singularities. As a
side-product we compute homotopy types of the corresponding classifying
spectra.
Keywords
Positive scalar curvature, Spin
manifolds, manifolds with singularities, Spin cobordism,
characteristic classes in K–theory, cobordism with
singularities, Dirac operator, K–theory with
singularities, Adams spectral sequence,
A(1)–modules
Received: 2 November 1999
Revised: 28 August 2001
Accepted: 26 September 2001
Published: 26 September 2001
Proposed: Ralph Cohen
Seconded: Haynes Miller, Steven Ferry