Hirzebruch $\chi_y$-genera of complex algebraic fiber bundles -- the multiplicativity of the signature modulo $4$ --

Abstract

Let $E$ be a fiber $F$ bundle over a base $B$ such that $E, F$ and $B$ are smooth compact complex algebraic varieties. In this paper we give explicit formulae for the difference of the Hirzebruch $\chi_y$-genus $\chi_y(E) - \chi_y(F)\chi_y(B)$. As a byproduct of the formulae we obtain that the signature of such a fiber bundle is multiplicative mod $4$, i.e. the signature difference $\sigma(E) -\sigma(F)\sigma(B)$ is always divisible by $4$. In the case of $\operatorname{dim}_{\mathbb C}E \leqq 4$ the $\chi_y$-genus difference $\chi_y(E) - \chi_y(F)\chi_y(B)$ can be concretely described only in terms of the signature difference $\sigma(E) -\sigma(F) \sigma(B)$ and/or the Todd genus difference $\tau(E) - \tau(F)\tau(B)$. Using this we can obtain that in order for $\chi_y$ to be multiplicative $\chi_y(E) = \chi_y(F)\cdot \chi_y(B)$ for any such fiber bundle $y$ has to be $-1$, namely only the Euler-Poincar\'e characteristic is multiplicative for any such fiber bundle.