TITLE: Smooth and topological bordism and homology
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: I have some questions about homology, manifolds and bordism. First of all, if X is a smooth manifold, in general an integral homology class in X cannot be represented by a smooth embedded submanifold, as Thom proved.
1) If X is a topological manifold, does the same result hold? Are there in general singular homology classes, which are not representable by a topological embedded submanifold?
Then, let us consider the oriented bordism groups of a topological space X. Its elements are represented by couples (M, f), for M a smooth oriented manifold and f: M -> X continuous. There is a natural map to singular homology, defined as $[(M, f)] \rightarrow f_{*}([M])$, which, in general, is not surjective.
2) If we define the "topological bordism", requiring that M is a topological manifold (not necessarily smooth), is the corresponding map to singular homology surjective?
3) If X is a smooth manifold, and we define bordism requiring that f is a smooth map (not only continuous), do we obtain the same bordism groups (up to isomorphism)?

REPLY [2 votes]: (3) Yes, this is exactly the differential bordism groups $D_k(Y)$ of Conner (see §1.9 in P.E. Conner, Differentiable Periodic Maps, second edition, Springer Lecture Notes in Mathematics 738, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1979.)
He proves in Theorem I.9.1 that the natural projection $D_k(Y) → MSO_k(Y)$ is an isomorphism. Hence the so defined bordism groups are isomorphic to the usual definition of bordism groups $MSO_k(Y)$. (As in Conner, or Atiyah (M.F. Atiyah, Bordism and cobordism, Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 57 (1961), 200–208.))