Related papers: Simple crystallizations of 4-manifolds

Shapes of four dimensional spaces can be studied effectively via maps to standard surfaces. We explain, and illustrate by quintessential examples, how to simplify such generic maps on 4-manifolds topologically, in order to derive simple…

Crystalline symmetry offers a powerful tool to realize photonic topological phases, in which additional trivial claddings are typically required to confine topological boundary states. However, the utility of the trivial cladding in…

Every closed oriented PL 4-manifold is a branched cover of the 4-sphere branched over a PL-surface with finitely many singularities by Piergallini [Topology 34(3):497-508, 1995]. This generalizes a long standing result by Hilden and…

The face pairing graph of a 3-manifold triangulation is a 4-valent graph denoting which tetrahedron faces are identified with which others. We present a series of properties that must be satisfied by the face pairing graph of a closed…

We consider manifold-knot pairs $(Y,K)$ where $Y$ is a homology sphere that bounds a homology ball. We show that the minimum genus of a PL surface $\Sigma$ in a homology ball $X$ such that $\partial (X, \Sigma) = (Y, K)$ can be arbitrarily…

We address the following question of partial desingularization preserving normal crossings. Given an algebraic (or analytic) variety X in characteristic zero, can we find a finite sequence of blowings-up preserving the normal-crossings…

We explicitly construct genus-2 Lefschetz fibrations whose total spaces are minimal symplectic 4-manifolds homeomorphic to complex rational surfaces CP^2 # p (-CP^2) for p=7, 8, 9, and to 3 CP^2 #q (-CP^2) for q =12,...,19. Complementarily,…

We present an explicit algorithm for tessellating the algebraic surfaces (real 4-manifolds) F(n) embedded in CP3 defined by the equation z0^n + z1^n + z2^n + z3^n = 0 in the standard homogeneous coordinates [z0, z1, z2, z3], where n is any…

We study lower bounds for the number of vertices in a PL-triangulation of a given manifold $M$. While most of the previous estimates are based on the dimension and the connectivity of $M$, we show that further information can be extracted…

We discuss a PL analogue of Morse theory for PL manifolds. There are several notions of regular and critical points. A point is homologically regular if the homology does not change when passing through its level, it is strongly regular if…

Algebraically simply connected surfaces of general type with p_g=q=0 and 1\le K^2\le 4 in positive characteristic (with one exception in K^2=4) are presented by using a Q-Gorenstein smoothing of two-dimensional toric singularities, a…

After quick survey of some key results and open questions about the structure of singularities of minimal surfaces, we discuss recent work~\cite{Sim23} on singularities of stable minimal hypersurfaces, including some simplifications of the…

These notes are adapted from two talks given at the 2004 Clay Institute Summer School on Floer homology, gauge theory, and low dimensional topology at the Alfred Renyi Institute. We will quickly review what we do and do not know about the…

A classical result by Pachner states that two $d$-dimensional combinatorial manifolds with boundary are PL homeomorphic if and only they can be connected by a sequence of shellings and inverse shellings. We prove that for balanced, i.e.,…

We introduce the $2$-nodal spherical deformation of certain singular fibers of genus $2$ fibrations, and use such deformations to construct various examples of simply connected minimal symplectic $4$-manifolds with small topology. More…

This note is devoted to a trick which yields almost trivial proofs that certain complexes associated to topological surfaces are connected or simply connected. Applications include new proofs that the complexes of curves, separating curves,…

The purpose of this article is twofold. First we outline a general construction scheme for producing simply-connected minimal symplectic 4-manifolds with small Euler characteristics. Using this scheme, we illustrate how to obtain…

We prove there exists a compact embedded minimal surface in a complete finite volume hyperbolic $3$-manifold $\mathcal{N}$. We also obtain a least area, incompressible, properly embedded, finite topology, $2$-sided surface. We prove a…

We consider mapping class groups \Gamma(M) = pi_0 Diff(M fix \partial M) of smooth compact simply connected oriented 4-manifolds M bounded by a collection of 3-spheres. We show that if M contains CP^2 (with either orientation) as a…

Four observations compose the main results of this note. The first records the existence of a smoothly embedded 2-sphere $S$ inside $\mathbb{R} P^2\times S^2$ such that performing a Gluck twist on $S$ produces a manifold $Y$ that is…