Related papers: Corks, Plugs and exotic structures
Optical vortices are the electromagnetic analogue of fluid vortices studied in hydrodynamics. In both cases the traveling wavefront, either made of light or fluid, is twisted like a corkscrew around its propagation axis - an analogy that…
We provide the first explicit example of a cork of $\mathbf{CP}^2 \# 8\overline{\mathbf{CP}^2}$. This result gives the current smallest second Betti number of a standard simply-connected closed $4$-manifold for which an explicit cork has…
The study of knots and links from a probabilistic viewpoint provides insight into the behavior of "typical" knots, and opens avenues for new constructions of knots and other topological objects with interesting properties. The knotting of…
Biracks are algebraic structures related to knots and links. We define a new enhancement of the birack counting invariant for oriented classical and virtual knots and links via algebraic structures called birack dynamical cocycles. The new…
Simple closed curves in the plane can be mapped to nontrivial knots under the action of origami foldings that allow the paper to self-intersect. We show all tame knot types may be produced in this manner, motivating the development of a new…
The paper describes how known results in Heegaard-Floer homology apply to all known examples of rational blow-downs, and provides several new four dimensional pieces which could be exchanged while preserving some of the Ozsv\'ath-Szab\'o…
The aim of this paper is two-fold. First, the study of $C_{12}$-structure (called by us corner structure) is extended to the general case without any condition, unlike our previous papers (see, \cite{BB, BG2, BG, BBB}). Second, starting…
The toric surfaces for octonions and related objects are discussed.
In this article, we propose a new approach for describing and understanding knots and links in a 3-manifold through the use of an embedded non-orientable surface. Specifically, we define a plat-like representation based on this…
This is primarily an exposition, combining work of several authors (Curtis, Hsiang, Freedman, Stong, Matveyev, and Bizaca), of the proof that a smooth 5-dimensional h-cobordism between simply connected 4-manifolds is a product off of a…
We construct the first exotic $\mathbb C \mathbb P^2 \# 4 \overline{\mathbb C \mathbb P^2}$ by means of rational blowdowns. Similarly, we construct the first exotic $3\mathbb C \mathbb P^2 \# b^- \overline{\mathbb C \mathbb P^2}$ for…
We extend the concept of orbifold to that of branchfold, in order to allow any cone singularities with rational angles, and show why branchfolds naturally fit in the theory of branched coverings. Then, we obtain a geometric goodness theorem…
Although the black holes are an integral part of the standard model of astrophysics and cosmology, their existence poses some serious fundamental problems. In recent years, several horizonless compact object models were proposed to address…
Motivated by a fundamental geometrical object, the cut locus, we introduce and study a new combinatorial structure on graphs.
We define family versions of the invariant of 4-manifolds with contact boundary due to Kronheimer and Mrowka and use these to detect exotic diffeomorphisms of 4-manifolds with boundary. Further, we show the existence of the first example of…
The topology of symplectic 4-manifolds is related to that of singular plane curves via the concept of branched covers. Thus, various classification problems concerning symplectic 4-manifolds can be reformulated as questions about singular…
In general, the product of harmonic forms is not harmonic. We study the top exterior power of harmonic two-forms on compact Kaehler manifolds. Often, it is not harmonic. This phenomenon is related to the geometry of the manifold and to the…
We give a method for obtaining infinitely many framed knots which represent a diffeomorphic 4-manifold. We also study a relationship between the $n$-shake genus and the 4-ball genus of a knot. Furthermore we give a construction of homotopy…
Techniques for constructing codimension 2 embeddings and immersions of the 2 and 3-fold branched covers of the 3 and 4-dimensional spheres are presented. These covers are in braided form, and it is in this sense that they are folded. More…
Consider a continuous flow in $\mathbb{R}^3$ or any orientable $3$-manifold. Let $(Q_1, Q_0)$ be an index pair in the sense of Conley and consider the region $N := \overline{Q_1 - Q_0}$. (An example of this is a compact $3$-manifold $N$…