In this paper we show that Novikov type inequalities for closed 1-forms hold with the von Neumann Betti numbers replacing the Novikov numbers. As a consequence we obtain a vanishing theorem for L cohomology. We also prove that von Neumann Betti numbers coincide with the Novikov numbers for free abelian coverings. §0. Introduction S. Novikov and M. Shubin [NS] proved that Morse inequalities for ...

Recall that the (Mumford-Castelnuovo) regularity of M is the least integer ρ such that for each i all free generators of Fi lie in degree ≤ i + ρ, that is βi,j = 0, for j > i + ρ. In terms of Macaulay [Mac] regularity is the number of rows in the diagram produced by the “betti” command. A Betti number βi,j 6= 0 will be called extremal if βl,r = 0 for all l ≥ i and r ≥ j + 1, that is if βi,j is ...

We use Klee’s Dehn-Sommerville relations and other results on face numbers of homology manifolds without boundary to (i) prove Kalai’s conjecture providing lower bounds on the f -vectors of an even-dimensional manifold with all but the middle Betti number vanishing, (ii) verify Kühnel’s conjecture that gives an upper bound on the middle Betti number of a 2k-dimensional manifold in terms of k an...

We use Klee’s Dehn-Sommerville relations and other results on face numbers of homology manifolds without boundary to (i) prove Kalai’s conjecture providing lower bounds on the f -vectors of an even-dimensional manifold with all but the middle Betti number vanishing, (ii) verify Kühnel’s conjecture that gives an upper bound on the middle Betti number of a 2k-dimensional manifold in terms of k an...