English

Embedded surfaces with trivial extendable mapping class groups in simply connected $4$-manifolds

Geometric Topology 2026-08-02 v1

Abstract

For every g3g\geq 3, every closed, connected, oriented, simply connected smooth 44-manifold XX, and every knot KS3K\subset S^3, we construct infinitely many pairwise topologically inequivalent smoothly embedded oriented genus-gg surfaces FXF\subset X whose orientation-preserving extendable mapping class subgroups are trivial in both the topological and smooth categories and whose first Alexander modules are isomorphic to the Alexander module of KK. In particular, there are infinitely many such surfaces with vanishing first Alexander module. The construction is supported in a 44-ball. Although their Alexander data are prescribed independently, the surfaces are distinguished, and their mapping-class rigidity is detected, by the nonabelian centralizer structure of their exterior groups.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2608.01504,
  title  = {Embedded surfaces with trivial extendable mapping class groups in simply connected $4$-manifolds},
  author = {Weizhe Niu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2608.01504},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

84 pages, 3 figures. Comments welcome