Topological structure of candidates for positive curvature

AbstractIn light of recent advances in the study of manifolds admitting Riemannian metrics of positive sectional curvature, the study of certain infinite families of seven dimensional manifolds has become a matter of interest. We determine the cohomology ring structures of manifolds belonging to these families. This particular ring structure indicates the existence of topological invariants distinguishing the corresponding homeomorphism and diffeomorphism type. We show that all families contain representatives of infinitely many homotopy types