Kervaire–Milnor group

In mathematics, especially differential topology and cobordism theory, a Kervaire–Milnor group is an abelian group defined as the h-cobordism classes of homotopy spheres with the connected sum as composition and the reverse orientation as inversion. It controls the existence of smooth structures on topological and piecewise linear (PL) manifolds. Concerning the related question of PL structures on topological manifolds, the obstruction is given by the Kirby–Siebenmann invariant, which is a lot easier to understand. In all but three and four dimensions, Kervaire–Milnor groups furthermore give the possible smooth structures on spheres, hence exotic spheres. They are named after the French mathematician Michel Kervaire and the American mathematician John Milnor, who first described them in 1962. (Their paper was originally only supposed to be the first part, but a second part was never published.)