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The main result of this paper is a formula for calculating the Seiberg-Witten invariants of 4-manifolds with fixed-point free circle actions. This is done by showing under suitable conditions the existence of a diffeomorphism between the…
This paper presents the construction of the Seiberg-Witten-Floer homology of three-manifolds with non-trivial rational homology, and some properties of the invariant of three-manifolds obtained by computing the Euler characteristic. This…
Since their introduction in 1994, the Seiberg-Witten invariants have become one of the main tools used in 4-manifold theory. In this thesis, we will use these invariants to identify sufficient conditions for a 3-manifold to fibre over a…
We offer a new proof that two closed oriented 4-manifolds are cobordant if their signatures agree, in the spirit of Lickorish's proof that all closed oriented 3-manifolds bound 4-manifolds. Where Lickorish uses Heegaard splittings we use…
We give a method for obtaining a handle decomposition of an $n$-manifold if the manifold is given by isometric side-pairings of a polyhedron in $\en$, $\sn$ or $\hn$. Every cycle of $k$-faces on the polyhedron corresponds to an…
First steps towards a classification of irreducible symplectic 4-folds whose integral 2-cohomology with 4-tuple cup product is isomorphic to that of Hilb^2(K3). We prove that any such 4-fold deforms to an irreducible symplectic 4-fold of…
Given a three-manifold with b_1=1 and a nontorsion spin^c structure, we use finite dimensional approximation to construct from the Seiberg-Witten equations two invariants in the form of a periodic pro-spectra. Various functors applied to…
The rational blowdown operation in 4-manifold topology replaces a neighborhood of a configuration of spheres by a rational homology ball. Such configurations typically arise from resolutions of surface singularities that admit rational…
We show how the families Seiberg-Witten invariants of a family of smooth $4$-manifolds can be recovered from the families Bauer-Furuta invariant via a cohomological formula. We use this formula to deduce several properties of the families…
In this paper we prove several related results concerning smooth $\Z_p$ or $\s^1$ actions on 4-manifolds. We show that there exists an infinite sequence of smooth 4-manifolds $X_n$, $n\geq 2$, which have the same integral homology and…
We prove that smooth quartic threefolds are symplectically irrational, i.e., cannot be related to projective space by a series of symplectic blow-ups, blow-downs, and deformations. This implies that they are algebraically irrational,…
We show that, for each integer n, there exist infinitely many pairs of n-framed knots representing homeomorphic but non-diffeomorphic (Stein) 4-manifolds, which are the simplest possible exotic 4-manifolds regarding handlebody structures.…
New estimates are derived concerning the behavior of self-dual hamonic 2-forms on a compact Riemannian 4-manifold with non-trivial Seiberg-Witten invariants. Applications include a vanishing theorem for certain Seiberg-Witten invariants on…
We classify topological $4$-manifolds with boundary and fundamental group $\mathbb{Z}$, under some assumptions on the boundary. We apply this to classify surfaces in simply-connected $4$-manifolds with $S^3$ boundary, where the fundamental…
A compact oriented 4-manifold is defined to be of ``superconformal simple type'' if certain polynomials in the basic classes (constructed using the Seiberg-Witten invariants) vanish identically. We show that all known 4-manifolds of…
We produce infinite families of exotic actions of finite cyclic groups on simply connected smooth 4-manifolds with nontrivial Seiberg-Witten invariants.
We prove that there are rational homology balls $B_p$ smoothly embedded in the $2$-handlebodies associated to certain knots. Furthermore we show that, if we rationally blow up the $2$-handlebody along the embedded rational homology ball…
We ask about the simply connected compact smooth 6-manifolds which can support structures of Calabi-Yau threefolds. In particular, we study the interesting case of Calabi-Yau threefolds $X$ with second betti number 3. We have a cup-product…
We introduce a gauge-theoretic integer lift of the Rohlin invariant of a smooth 4-manifold X with the homology of $S^1 \times S^3$. The invariant has two terms; one is a count of solutions to the Seiberg-Witten equations on X, and the other…
We study the Seiberg-Witten invariant $\lambda_{\rm{SW}} (X)$ of smooth spin $4$-manifolds $X$ with integral homology of $S^1\times S^3$ defined by Mrowka, Ruberman, and Saveliev as a signed count of irreducible monopoles amended by an…