Related papers: Comparing star surgery to rational blow-down

We prove that the generalized rational blowdown, a surgery on smooth 4-manifolds, can be performed in the symplectic category.

We define a new 4-dimensional symplectic cut and paste operation which is analogous to Fintushel and Stern's rational blow-down. We use this operation to produce multiple constructions of symplectic smoothly exotic complex projective space…

We prove that the rational blowdown, a surgery on smooth 4-manifolds introduced by Fintushel and Stern, can be performed in the symplectic category. As a consequence, interesting families of smooth 4-manifolds, including the exotic $K3$…

Suppose that $C=(C_1,..., C_m)$ is a configuration of 2-dimensional symplectic submanifolds in a symplectic 4-manifold $(X,\omega)$ with connected, negative definite intersection graph $\Gamma_C$. We show that by replacing an appropriate…

We introduce blow-up and blow-down operations for generalized complex 4-manifolds. Combining these with a surgery analogous to the logarithmic transform, we then construct generalized complex structures on nCP2 # m \bar{CP2} for n odd, a…

In this paper we introduce a surgical procedure, called a rational blowdown, for a smooth 4-manifold X and determine how this procedure affects both the Donaldson and Seiberg-Witten invariants of X.

We prove that if a symplectic 4-manifold $X$ becomes a rational 4-manifold after applying rational blow-down surgery, then the symplectic 4-manifold $X$ is originally rational. That is, a symplectic rational blow-up of a rational symplectic…

We introduce several new families of relations in the mapping class groups of planar surfaces, each equating two products of right-handed Dehn twists. The interest of these relations lies in their geometric interpretation in terms of…

We show that every negative definite configuration of symplectic surfaces in a symplectic 4--manifold has a strongly symplectically convex neighborhood. We use this to show that, if a negative definite configuration satisfies an additional…

Fintushel and Stern defined the rational blow-down construction [FS] for smooth 4-manifolds, where a linear plumbing configuration of spheres $C_n$ is replaced with a rational homology ball $B_n$, $n \geq 2$. Subsequently, Symington [Sy]…

We construct simply connected, minimal, symplectic 4-manifolds with exotic smooth structures and each with one Seiberg-Witten basic class up to sign, on the Noether line and between the Noether and half Noether lines by star surgeries…

In this paper we study the star operations on a pullback of integral domains. In particular, we characterize the star operations of a domain arising from a pullback of ``a general type'' by introducing new techniques for ``projecting'' and…

We study a symplectic surgery operation we call unchaining, which effectively reduces the second Betti number and the symplectic Kodaira dimension at the same time. Using unchaining, we give novel constructions of symplectic Calabi-Yau…

The rational blowdown operation in 4-manifold topology replaces a neighborhood of a configuration of spheres by a rational homology ball. Such configurations typically arise from resolutions of surface singularities that admit rational…

We introduce a surgery operation on symplectic manifolds called coisotropic Luttinger surgery, which generalizes Luttinger surgery on Lagrangian tori in symplectic 4-manifolds. We use it to produce infinitely many distinct symplectic…

The normal connected sum construction of Gompf and the rational blowing-down technique of Fintushel - Stern are important tools in constructing symplectic 4-manifolds. In some cases, the 4-manifolds created this way are of Kahler type. In…

We study embedded spheres in 4-manifolds (2-knots) via doubly pointed trisection diagrams, showing that such descriptions are unique up to stabilization and handleslides, and we describe how to obtain trisection diagrams for certain…

We introduce new symplectic cut-and-paste operations that generalize the rational blowdown. In particular, we will define $k$-replaceable plumbings to be those that, heuristically, can be symplectically replaced by Euler characteristic $k$…

We study star operations on Kunz domains, a class of analytically irreducible, residually rational domains associated to pseudo-symmetric numerical semigroups, and we use them to refute a conjecture of Houston, Mimouni and Park. We also…

We define a new 4-dimensional symplectic cut and paste operations arising from the generalized star relations $(t_{a_0}t_{a_1}t_{a_2} \cdots t_{a_{2g+1}})^{2g+1} = t_{b_1} t_{b_2}^{g}t_{b_3}$, also known as the trident relations, in the…