English

Exotic 4-manifolds and Khovanov-Lipshitz-Sarkar homotopy type

Geometric Topology 2026-02-19 v2

Abstract

We introduce a new diffeomorphism invariant of smooth compact oriented 4-manifolds XX with a framed oriented 1-link LL in the boundary, where LL may be the empty set, and call it {\it Khovanov-Lipshitz-Sarkar skein lasagna homotopy type} or {\it KLS lasagna homotopy type} E0LS(X,L)\mathcal E^{{LS}}_0(X,L). Our invariant assigns to a smooth structure a stable homotopy type of a CW complex. Our new invariant is not weaker than KR lasagna module, which were defined by Morrison, Walker and Wedrich. For a pair (X,L)(X,L) such that LL\neq\emptyset, our new invariant, KLS lasagna homotopy type, is stronger than the Khovanov-Rozansky gl2\mathfrak{gl}_2 skein lasagna modules or KR lasagna modules.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.13462,
  title  = {Exotic 4-manifolds and Khovanov-Lipshitz-Sarkar homotopy type},
  author = {Louis H. Kauffman and Igor M. Nikonov and Eiji Ogasa},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.13462},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Theorem 2.1.(2) needs a more gentle proof. The citation in the second paragraph is probably not enough. Therefore the main result may be dubious now. We must think about them