Tag Archives: characteristic class

The Eisenbud–Levine–Khimshiashvili signature formula

I learned last week of a really cool result, published when I was a first-year undergraduate, that I had not been aware of before.  Maybe everyone knew it except me, but it is so neat I’m going to write about it anyway.

To set the scene, think about the Hopf index theorem for vector fields on a (compact, oriented)  \(n\)-manifold.  Continue reading