Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/iii/paper-115/2/c/solution

We induct on . The claim is immediate for . In the stated cover, is contractible. The homotopy
deformation retracts onto the hyperplane , which is . Moreover,
deformation retracts onto .
The Mayer--Vietoris sequence for the de Rham complex contains
For odd , the group on the right vanishes by contractibility and the induction hypothesis, while the group on the left vanishes because is positive and even and is neither nor . Thus the middle group vanishes. For , the preceding map
is surjective because all three spaces are connected, so the connecting map into is zero. Therefore all odd de Rham cohomology groups of vanish.

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