Related papers: Exotic Structures on smooth 4-manifolds

We construct an example of a cork that remains exotic after taking a connected sum with $S^2 \times S^2$. Combined with a work of Akbulut-Ruberman, this implies the existence of an exotic pair of contractible 4-manifolds which remains…

In a recent paper, Park constructs certain exotic simply-connected four-manifolds with small Euler characteristics. Our aim here is to prove that the four-manifolds in his constructions are minimal.

We prove that every 4-dimensional oriented handlebody without 3- and 4-handles can be modified to admit infinitely many exotic smooth structures, and moreover prove that their genus functions are pairwise equivalent. We furthermore show…

Recent discoveries in differential topology are reviewed in light of their possible implications for spacetime models and related subjects in theoretical physics. Although not often noted, a particular smoothness (differentiability)…

We provide the first information on diffeotopy groups of exotic smoothings of R^4: For each of uncountably many smoothings, there are uncountably many isotopy classes of self-diffeomorphisms. We realize these by various explicit group…

We construct an infinite family $\{ C_{n,k}\}_{k=1}^{\infty}$ of corks of Mazur type satisfying $2n\leq \mathrm{sc}^{\mathrm{sp}}(C_{n,k})\leq O(n^{3/2})$ for any positive integer $n$. Furthermore, using these corks, we construct an…

We reprove and strengthen some old difficult theorems of 4-manifolds by the aid of recently discovered modern tools, which involve contact structures on 3-manifolds, compact Stein domains, etc.

We investigate the uniqueness of so-called exotic structures on certain exact symplectic manifolds by looking at how their symplectic properties change under small nonexact deformations of the symplectic form. This allows us to distinguish…

We produce examples of pairwise non-diffeomorphic closed irreducible 4-manifolds with non-trivial free abelian fundamental group of rank less than three and small Euler characteristic. These exotic smooth structures become standard after…

One strategy for distinguishing smooth structures on closed $4$-manifolds is to produce a knot $K$ in $S^3$ that is slice in one smooth filling $W$ of $S^3$ but not slice in some homeomorphic smooth filling $W'$. In this paper we explore…

We review recent developments in differential topology with special concern for their possible significance to physical theories, especially general relativity. In particular we are concerned here with the discovery of the existence of…

It is shown that any finite list of smooth closed simply-connected 4-manifolds homeomorphic to a given one X can be obtained by removing a single compact contractible submanifold (or cork) from X, and then regluing it by powers of a…

We study the relationship between exotic R^4's and Stein surfaces as it applies to smoothing theory on more general open 4-manifolds. In particular, we construct the first known examples of large exotic R^4's that embed in Stein surfaces.…

Every exotic pair in 4-dimension is obtained each other by twisting a {\it cork} or {\it plug} which are codimension 0 submanifolds embedded in the 4-manifolds. The twist was an involution on the boundary of the submanifold. We define cork…

This article intends to provide an introduction to the construction of small exotic 4-manifolds. Some of the necessary background is covered. An exposition is given of J. Park's construction in arXiv:math.GT/0311395 of an exotic…

We introduce multisections of smooth, closed 4-manifolds, which generalize trisections to decompositions with more than three pieces. This decomposition describes an arbitrary smooth, closed 4-manifold as a sequence of cut systems on a…

Let $M$ be $\CP#2\CPb$, $3\CP#4\CPb$ or $(2n-1)\CP#2n\CPb$ for any integer $n\geq 3$. We construct an irreducible symplectic 4-manifold homeomorphic to $M$ and also an infinite family of pairwise non-diffeomorphic irreducible non-symplectic…

We construct smooth 4-manifolds homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to CP^2+6CP^2-bar.

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…

We construct an infinite family of mutually non-diffeomorphic irreducible smooth structures on the topological 4-manifold $S^2 \times S^2$.