Related papers: Man and machine thinking about the smooth 4-dimens…

We continue our program initiated in [arXiv:0912.4261] to consider supersymmetric surface operators in a topologically-twisted N=2 pure SU(2) gauge theory, and apply them to the study of four-manifolds and related invariants. Elegant…

We say that two knots are friends if they share the same 0-surgery. Two friends with different sliceness status would provide a counterexample to the 4-dimensional smooth Poincar\'e conjecture. Here we create a census of all friends with…

First, we prove a special case of Knaster's problem, implying that each symmetric convex body in R^3 admits an inscribed cube. We deduce it from a theorem in equivariant topology, which says that there is no S_4-equivariant map from SO(3)…

We give new examples of noncommutative manifolds that are less standard than the NC-torus or Moyal deformations of $\Rb^n$. They arise naturally from basic considerations of noncommutative differential topology and have non-trivial global…

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…

Using the conjugation symmetry on Heegaard Floer complexes, we define a three-manifold invariant called involutive Heegaard Floer homology, which is meant to correspond to $\mathbb{Z}_4$-equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer homology. Further,…

From a handlebody-theoretic perspective, the simplest compact, contractible 4-manifolds, other than the 4-ball, are Mazur manifolds. We produce the first pairs of Mazur manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic. Our…

In this paper we shall study smooth submanifolds immersed in a k-step Carnot group G of homogeneous dimension Q. Among other results, we shall prove an isoperimetric inequality for the case of a $C^2$-smooth compact hypersurface S with - or…

We generalise the Kreck-Stolz invariants s_2 and s_3 by defining a new invariant, the t-invariant, for quaternionic line bundles E over closed spin-manifolds M of dimension 4k-1 with H^3(M; \Q) = 0 such that c_2(E)\in H^4(M) is torsion. The…

Given a spin rational homology sphere $Y$ equipped with a $\mathbb{Z}/m$-action preserving the spin structure, we use the Seiberg--Witten equations to define equivariant refinements of the invariant $\kappa(Y)$ from \cite{Man14}, which take…

This short survey, which was written to accompany a minicourse at the BIRS conference "Topology in dimension 4.5", concerns invariants of knotted $2$-spheres in $S^4$, also known as $2$-knots. It covers invariants extracted from the…

We construct analogs of Khovanov-Jacobsson classes and the Rasmussen invariant for links in the boundary of any smooth oriented 4-manifold. The main tools are skein lasagna modules based on equivariant and deformed versions of…

It is well-known that an n-dimensional Poincar\'{e} complex $X^n$, $n \ge 5$, has the homotopy type of a compact topological $n$-manifold if the total surgery obstruction $s(X^n)$ vanishes. The present paper discusses recent attempts to…

A cutting and pasting operation on a $P^2$-knot $S$ in a $4$-manifold is called the Price twist. The Price twist for the $4$-sphere $S^4$ yields at most three $4$-manifolds up to diffeomorphism, namely, the $4$-sphere $S^4$, the other…

Topological gauge theories in four dimensions which admit surface operators provide a natural framework for realizing homological knot invariants. Every such theory leads to an action of the braid group on branes on the corresponding moduli…

We construct infinitely many smooth 4-manifolds which are homotopy equivalent to $S^2$ but do not admit a spine, i.e., a piecewise-linear embedding of $S^2$ which realizes the homotopy equivalence. This is the remaining case in the…

The purpose of this paper is to study geometrically simply-connected homotopy 4-spheres by analyzing $n$-component links with a Dehn surgery realizing $\#^n(S^1\times S^2)$. We call such links $n$R-links. Our main result is that a homotopy…

v1: In this paper, we will give an elementary proof by the Heegaard splittings of the 3-dimentional Poincare conjecture in point of view of PL topology. This paper is of the same theory in [4](1983) excluding the last three lines of the…

In this note we prove that, for any integer n, there exist a smooth 4-manifold, homotopic to a K3 surface, defined by applying the link surgery method of Fintushel-Stern to a certain 2-component graph link, which admits n inequivalent…

The unknot U in S^4 has non-unique smooth spanning 3-balls up to isotopy fixing U. Equivalently there are properly embedded non-separating 3-balls in S^1xB^3 not properly isotopic to 1xB^3. More generally there exist non-separating…