Related papers: Nonsmoothable group actions on spin 4-manifolds

We consider the question of extending a smooth homotopy coherent finite cyclic group action on the boundary of a smooth 4-manifold to its interior. As a result, we prove that Dehn twists along any Seifert homology sphere, except the…

Let $M$ be a smooth, orientable, closed, connected $4$-manifold and suppose that $H_1(M;\mathbb{Z})$ is finitely generated and has no $2$-torsion. We give a homotopy decomposition of the suspension of $M$ in terms of spheres, Moore spaces…

We consider orientation-preserving actions of a finite group G on the 3-sphere S^3 (and also on Euclidean space R^3). By the geometrization of finite group actions on 3-manifolds, if such an action is smooth then it is conjugate to an…

Let G be a finite group acting freely on a finitistic space X having cohomology type (0, b) (for example, S^n x S^{2n} is a space of type (0, 1) and the one-point union S^n V S^{2n} V S^{3n} is a space of type (0, 0)). It is known that a…

Let $(M, \omega)$ be a 6-dimensional closed symplectic manifold with a symplectic $S^1$-action with $M^{S^1} \neq \emptyset$ and $\dim M^{S^1} \leq 2$. Assume that $\omega$ is integral with a generalized moment map $\mu$. We first prove…

For each integer $d$ at least two, we construct non-spin closed oriented flat manifolds with holonomy group $\mathbb Z_2^d$ and with the property that all of their finite proper covers have a spin structure. Moreover, all such covers have…

Let $M^m$ be a compact oriented smooth manifold which admits a smooth circle action with isolated fixed points which are isolated as singularities as well. Then all the Pontryagin numbers of $M^m$ are zero and its Euler number is…

This paper discusses topological and locally linear actions of finite groups on $S^4$. Local linearity of the orientation preserving actions on $S^4$ forces the group to be a subgroup of $SO(5)$. On the other hand, orientation reversing…

We study smooth proper embeddings of compact orientable surfaces in compact orientable $4$-manifolds and elements in the mapping class group of that surface which are induced by diffeomorphisms of the ambient $4$-manifolds. We call such…

Let M be either CP^2#3CP^2bar or 3CP^2#5CP^2bar. We construct the first example of a simply-connected symplectic 4-manifold that is homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to M.

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

We prove that for each closed smooth spin 4-manifold M there exists a closed smooth 4-manifold N such that the connected sum M # N admits a conformally flat Riemannian metric.

We classify closed, topological spin$^+$ 4-manifolds with fundamental group $\pi$ of cohomological dimension $\leq 3$ (up to s-cobordism), after stabilization by connected sum with at most $b_3(\pi)$ copies of $S^2\times S^2$. In general we…

Given a closed, smooth 4-manifold $X$ and self-diffeomorphism $f$ that is topologically pseudo-isotopic to the identity, we study the question of whether $f$ is moreover smoothly pseudo-isotopic to the identity. If the fundamental group of…

The content of this unpublished paper is subsumed in successive work of the authors, in particular arXiv:1102.0820, arXiv:1102.0821 and arXiv:1205.2434.

We show that any closed oriented 3-manifold can be topologically embedded in some simply-connected closed symplectic 4-manifold, and that it can be made a smooth embedding after one stabilization. As a corollary of the proof we show that…

We show that every positive definite closed 4-manifold with $b_2^+>1$ and without 1-handles has a vanishing stable cohomotopy Seiberg-Witten invariant, and thus admits no symplectic structure. We also show that every closed oriented…

We exhibit the first examples of compact orientable hyperbolic manifolds that do not have any spin structure. We show that such manifolds exist in all dimensions $n \geq 4$. The core of the argument is the construction of a compact…

Let $M$ be a $2n$-dimensional closed symplectic manifold admitting a Hamiltonian circle action with isolated fixed points. We show that if $M$ contains an $S^1$-invariant symplectic hypersurface $D$ such that $M\setminus D$ is a homology…

We prove new cases of the Hilbert-Smith conjecture for actions by natural homeomorphisms in symplectic topology. Specifically, we prove that the group of $p$-adic integers $\mathbb Z_p$ does not admit non-trivial continuous actions by…