A characterization of the n-dimensional torus via intrinsically harmonic forms

Abstract

The $n$-torus is the the unique closed manifold supporting a set of $n$ linearly independent closed $1$-forms. In this paper we improve on this result and show that the torus is the unique closed $n$-dimensional manifold supporting a linearly independent set consisting of $(n-1)$ closed $1$-forms whose product determines a non-zero cohomological class.