Invariants of Boundary Link Cobordism II. The Blanchfield-Duval Form

Abstract

We use the Blanchfield-Duval form to define complete invariants for the cobordism group C_{2q-1}(F_μ) of (2q-1)-dimensional μ-component boundary links (for q\geq2). The author solved the same problem in math.AT/0110249 via Seifert forms. Although Seifert forms are convenient in explicit computations, the Blanchfield-Duval form is more intrinsic and appears naturally in homology surgery theory. The free cover of the complement of a link is constructed by pasting together infinitely many copies of the complement of a μ-component Seifert surface. We prove that the algebraic analogue of this construction, a functor denoted B, identifies the author's earlier invariants with those defined here. We show that B is equivalent to a universal localization of categories and describe the structure of the modules sent to zero. Taking coefficients in a semi-simple Artinian ring, we deduce that the Witt group of Seifert forms is isomorphic to the Witt group of Blanchfield-Duval forms.