On singular variants of the Singer-Hopf Conjecture

Abstract

We propose singular variants of the Singer-Hopf conjecture, formulated in terms of the Euler-Mather characteristic, intersection homology Euler characteristic and, resp., virtual Euler characteristic of a closed irreducible subvariety of an aspherical complex projective manifold. We prove the conjecture under the assumption that the cotangent bundle of the ambient variety is numerically effective (nef), or, more generally, when the ambient manifold admits a finite morphism to a complex projective manifold with a nef cotangent bundle.