Could someone tell me what is the cohomology algebra $H^*(\mathbb{R}P^n \# \mathbb{R}P^n; \mathbb{Z}_2)$ and how to compute it. Here $\#$ is the connected sum.
Thanks.
Could someone tell me what is the cohomology algebra $H^*(\mathbb{R}P^n \# \mathbb{R}P^n; \mathbb{Z}_2)$ and how to compute it. Here $\#$ is the connected sum.
Thanks.
Given two compact connected differential manifolds $M_1$ and $M_2$ of dimension $n$, the reduced homology with $\mathbb Z$ coefficients of their connected sum is given by
$\tilde H_i(M_1 \#M_2) =\tilde H_i(M_1) \oplus \tilde H_i(\#M_2) \quad \text {for}\;\; i\lt n-1$
$ H_{n-1}(M_1 \#M_2) = H_{n-1}(M_1) \oplus \ H_{n-1}(\#M_2)$ if one of $M_1, M_2 $at least is orientable
$H_n(M_1 \#M_2) = \mathbb Z \; \text {or } \;0$ according as both $M_1, M_2$ are orientable or not.
This results from Mayer-Vietoris.
You should then calculate cohomology with coefficients in $\mathbb Z/2$ by the universal coefficient theorem.
Warning: if both $M_1,M_2$ are non-orientable (in your case if your projective space $\mathbb P^n$ is even-dimensional), I am not sure that $M_1 \#M_2$ is even well defined, i.e. is independent of the choices made in the construction of the connected sum.