Related papers: Dissolving knot surgered 4-manifolds by classical …

Let X be a compact Kaehler manifold. We expect that any direct sum decomposition of the tangent bundle T(X) comes from a splitting of the universal covering space of X as a product of manifolds, in such a way that the given decomposition of…

We prove a diagonalisation theorem for the tautological, or generalised Miller-Morita-Mumford classes of compact, smooth, simply-connected definite $4$-manifolds. Our result can be thought of as a families version of Donaldson's…

A refined form of the `Folk Theorem' that a smooth action by a compact Lie group can be (canonically) resolved, by iterated blow up, to have unique isotropy type was established by the authors in the context of manifolds with corners; the…

We prove the strong Weinstein conjecture for closed contact manifolds that appear as the concave boundary of a symplectic cobordism admitting an essential local foliation by holomorphic spheres.

We prove the following result: Let $(X,g_0)$ be a complete, connected 4-manifold with uniformly positive isotropic curvature and with bounded geometry. Then there is a finite collection $\mathcal{F}$ of manifolds of the form $\mathbb{S}^3…

In this paper we investigate the relationship between isotopy classes of knots and links in S^3 and the diffeomorphism types of homeomorphic smooth 4-manifolds. As a corollary of this initial investigation, we begin to uncover the…

It is proved that the Wedderburn Theorem on finite division rings implies that all knots and links in the smooth 4-dimensional manifolds are trivial.

We classify the possible elementary amenable fundamental groups of compact aspherical 4-manifolds with boundary and conclude that they are either polycyclic or solvable Baumslag- Solitar. Since these groups are good and satisfy the…

In this paper, we will introduce a cut and paste move, called a geometrically null log transform, and prove that any two manifolds related by a sequence of these moves become diffeomorphic afte r one stabilization. To motivate the cut and…

We show that any smooth, closed, oriented, connected 4--manifold can be trisected into three copies of $\natural^k (S^1 \times B^3)$, intersecting pairwise in 3--dimensional handlebodies, with triple intersection a closed 2--dimensional…

We give a new proof of Laudenbach and Po\'enaru's theorem, which states that any diffeomorphism of the boundary of a 4-dimensional 1-handlebody extends to the whole handlebody. Our proof is based on the cassification of Heegaard splittings…

Let $\mathcal{N}_*$ be the unoriented cobordism algebra, let $G=(\Z_2)^n$ and let $Z_*(G)$ denote the equivariant cobordism algebra of $G$-manifolds with finite stationary point sets. Let $\epsilon_* :Z_*(G) \to \mathcal{N}_*$ be the…

This is a survey article about the connections between knot theory and four-dimensional topology. Every four-manifold can be represented in terms of a link, by a Kirby diagram. This point of view has led to progress in computing invariants…

Let X be a simply connected projective manifold with nef anticanonical bundle. We prove that X is a product of a rationally connected manifold and a manifold with trivial canonical bundle. As an application we describe the MRC fibration of…

We show that every smooth, closed, orientable 4-manifold X admits a special kind of handlebody decomposition that we call horizontal. We classify the closed 4-manifolds with the simplest horizontal decompositions and we describe all such…

We show how to construct absolutely exotic smooth structures on compact 4-manifolds with boundary, including contractible manifolds. In particular, we prove that any compact smooth 4-manifold W with boundary that admits a relatively exotic…

Let $M_K$ be the 2-fold branched cover of a knot $K in $S^3$. If $H_1(M_K) = {\bf Z}_3 \oplus {\bf Z}_{3^{2i}} \oplus G$ where 3 does not divide the order of $G$ then $K$ is not of order 4 in the concordance group. This obstruction detects…

Kawauchi proved that every strongly negative amphichiral knot $K \subset S^3$ bounds a smoothly embedded disk in some rational homology ball $V_K$, whose construction a priori depends on $K$. We show that $V_K$ is independent of $K$ up to…

Let $M$ be a holomorphically symplectic complex manifold, not necessarily compact or quasiprojective, and $X \subset M$ a compact Lagrangian submanifold. We construct a deformation to the normal cone, showing that a neighbourhood of $X$ can…

We give a method for obtaining infinitely many framed knots which represent a diffeomorphic 4-manifold. We also study a relationship between the $n$-shake genus and the 4-ball genus of a knot. Furthermore we give a construction of homotopy…