Related papers: The classification of smooth structures on a homot…
We introduce a new technique that is used to show that the complex projective plane blown up at 6, 7, or 8 points has infinitely many distinct smooth structures. None of these smooth structures admit smoothly embedded spheres with…
One can define the complexity of a smooth 4-manifold as the minimal sum of the number of disks, strands and crossings in a Kirby diagram. Martelli proved that the number of homeomorphism classes of complexity less than n grows as $n^2$. In…
Given a closed $n$-manifold, we consider the set of simple homotopy types of $n$-manifolds within its homotopy type, called its simple homotopy manifold set. We characterise it in terms of algebraic K-theory, the surgery obstruction map,…
We will describe some results regarding the algorithmic nature of homeomorphism problems for manifolds; in particular, the following theorem. Theorem 1: Every PL or smooth simply connected manifold M^n of dimension n at least 5 can be…
We determine $\pi_*(BDiff_\partial(D^{2n})) \otimes \mathbb{Q}$ for $2n \geq 6$ completely in degrees $* \leq 4n-10$, far beyond the pseudoisotopy stable range. Furthermore, above these degrees we discover a systematic structure in these…
In the author's earlier work there appeared a new way to specify any smooth closed 4-manifold by a surface diagram, which consists of an orientable surface decorated with simple closed curves. These curves are cyclically indexed, and each…
In this paper, we identify the concordance classes of smooth structures on $PL$-manifolds of dimension between $8$ and $10$ in terms of the cohomology and Steenrod operations. This leads to the computation of the homotopy inertia groups.…
One approach to produce a pair of homeomorphic-but-not-diffeomophic closed 4-manifolds is to find a knot which is smoothly slice in one but not the other. This approach has never been run successfully. We give the first examples of a pair…
For any smooth compact manifold $W$ of dimension at least two we prove that the classifying spaces of its group of diffeomorphisms which fix a set of $k$ points or $k$ embedded disks (up to permutation) satisfy homology stability. The same…
Smooth structures on high dimensional manifolds are classified by maps to the infinite loop space $TOP/O$. The homotopy groups of this space are known to be finite. Given a compact Lie group $G$, this space can be regarded as an equivariant…
Diffeological spaces are generalizations of smooth manifolds. In this paper, we study the homotopy theory of diffeological spaces. We begin by proving basic properties of the smooth homotopy groups that we will need later. Then we introduce…
We discuss our recent results on the existence and classification problem of complex and Kaehler structures on compact solvmanifolds. In particular, we determine in this paper all the complex surfaces which are diffeomorphic to compact…
Kreck and Schafer produced the first examples of stably diffeomorphic closed smooth 4-manifolds which are not homotopy equivalent. They were constructed by applying the doubling construction to 2-complexes over certain finite abelian groups…
We obtain two classifications of weighted projective spaces; up to homeomorphism and up to homotopy equivalence. We show that the former coincides with Al Amrani's classification up to isomorphism of algebraic varieties, and deduce the…
Let $M$ and $N$ be two closed $C^{\infty}$ manifolds and let $\text{Diff}_c(M)$ denote the group of $C^{\infty}$ diffeomorphisms isotopic to the identity. We prove that any (discrete) group homomorphism between $\text{Diff}_c(M)$ and…
We show that for any smooth Hausdorff manifolds M and N, which are not necessarily second countable, paracompact or connected, any isomorphism from the algebra of smooth (real or complex) functions on N to the algebra of smooth functions on…
Using symplectic topology and the Radon transform, we prove that smooth 4-dimensional projective planes are diffeomorphic to $\mathbb{CP}^2$. We define the notion of a plane curve in a smooth projective plane, show that plane curves in high…
We prove that a compactly supported homeomorphism of a smooth manifold of dimension greater or equal to 5 can be approximated uniformly by compactly supported diffeomorphisms if and only if it is isotopic to a diffeomorphism. If the given…
The Hopf theorem states that homotopy classes of continuous maps from a closed connected oriented smooth $n$-manifold $M$ to the $n$-sphere are classified by their degree. Such a map is equivalent to a section of the trivial $n$-sphere…
We show that every sheaf on the site of smooth manifolds with values in a stable (infinity,1)-category (like spectra or chain complexes) gives rise to a differential cohomology diagram and a homotopy formula, which are common features of…