Complex line fields on almost-complex manifolds

Abstract

We study linearly independent complex line fields on almost-complex manifolds, which is a topic of long-standing interest in differential topology and complex geometry. A necessary condition for the existence of such fields is the vanishing of appropriate virtual Chern classes. We prove that this condition is also sufficient for the existence of one, two, or three linearly independent complex line fields over certain manifolds. More generally, our results hold for a wider class of complex bundles over CW complexes.