# Homotopy groups of $S^2$

Dear all,

in the paper

Foundations of the theory of bounded cohomology,

by N.V. Ivanov, the author considers the complex of bounded singular cochains on a simply connected CW-complex $X$, and constructs a chain homotopy between the identity and the null map. The construction of this homotopy involves the description of a Postnikov system for the space considered. In some sense, $S^2$ represents the easiest nontrivial case of interest for this construction, and I was just trying to figure out what is happening in this case. Since the existence of a contracting homotopy obviously implies the vanishing of bounded cohomology, this is somewaht related to understanding why the bounded cohomology of $S^2$ vanishes.

A first step in constructing the needed Postnikiv system is the computation of the homotopy groups of $X$, so the following question came into my mind:

Do there exists integers $n\neq 0,1$ such that $\pi_n(S^2)=0$?

I gave a look around, and I did not find the answer to this question, but I am not an expert of the subject, so I don't even know if this is an open problem.

In

Berrick, A. J., Cohen, F. R., Wong, Y. L., Wu, J., Configurations, braids, and homotopy groups, J. Amer. Math. Soc. 19 (2006), no. 2, 265–326

it is stated that $\pi_n(S^2)$ is known for every $n\leq 64$, and Wikipedia's table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homotopy_groups_of_spheres#Table_of_homotopy_groups shows that $\pi_n (S^2)$ is non-trivial for $n\leq 21$.

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Probably an open problem... –  André Henriques May 6 '11 at 16:13
Do you have any particular reason to think all the homotopy groups are nontrivial, except for the low-dimensional evidence? –  Tilman May 6 '11 at 16:21
Why are you interested? –  Todd Trimble May 6 '11 at 16:54
@Todd: beyond finiteness of homotopy groups of spheres this seems to be one of the simplest questions you could ask about these groups. So I find it a pretty natural and elementary question. If I was to guess, because of the Berrick-Cohen-Wong-Wu theorem, perhaps Roberto is interested in properties of Brunnian braids. –  Ryan Budney May 6 '11 at 19:13
@Tilman: Are you saying that the set of $n$ such that $\pi_n(S^0)_{(p)}^{stable}\not = 0$ is infinite? That wold be pretty surprising to me... –  André Henriques May 6 '11 at 23:38

I don't believe the answer to this question is known. There are various things one can say that are related. For example, there are known non-zero elements of known order from the image of the J homomorphism in all dimensions congruent to 3 mod 4 (by which I mean $\pi_{2+n}(S^2)$ with n congruent to 3 mod 4).
It is known that $S^4$ has no nonzero homotopy groups (except for the obvious ones, of course). –  Jeff Strom May 9 '11 at 13:38
I wonder if the Laures' $f$-invariant can be used to go further... –  მამუკა ჯიბლაძე Jun 8 at 4:35