Related papers: The simple type conjecture for mod 2 Seiberg-Witte…
In this paper, we investigate existence of inequivalent smooth structures on closed smooth non-orientable 4-manifolds building upon results of Akbulut, Cappell-Shaneson, Fintushel-Stern, Gompf, and Stolz. We add to the number of known…
On a compact K\"{a}hler manifold $X$ with a holomorphic 2-form $\a$, there is an almost complex structure associated with $\a$. We show how this implies vanishing theorems for the Gromov-Witten invariants of $X$. This extends the approach,…
We demonstrate an obstruction to finding certain splittings of four-manifolds along sufficiently twisted circle bundles over Riemann surfaces, arising from Seiberg-Witten theory. These obstructions are used to show a non-splitting result…
The main results of this paper describes a formula for the Seiberg-Witten invariant of a 4-manifold which admits a nontrivial free S^1-action. We use this theorem to produce a nonsymplectic 4-manifold with a free circle action whose orbit…
Let $M$ be an oriented closed 4-manifold and $\cL$ be a $spin^c$ structure on $M$. In this paper we prove that under a suitable condition the Seiberg-Witten moduli space has a canonical spin structure and its spin bordism class is an…
Symplectic 4-manifolds $(X,\omega)$ with $b_+{=}1$ are roughly classified by the canonical class $K$ and the symplectic form $\omega$ depending upon the sign of $K^2$ and $K\cdot \omega$. Examples are known for each category except for the…
We consider a generalisation of the Seiberg-Witten invariant to the families Seiberg-Witten invariants of a smooth family of 4-manifolds with fibres diffeomorphic to a 4-manifold $X$. Of particular interest is the special case when the…
We show that any closed oriented 3-manifold can be topologically embedded in some simply-connected closed symplectic 4-manifold, and that it can be made a smooth embedding after one stabilization. As a corollary of the proof we show that…
A 2-torus manifold is a closed connected smooth n-manifold with a non-free effective smooth $\mathbb{Z}^n_2$-action. In this paper, we prove that a 2-torus manifold is equivariantly formal if and only if the $\mathbb{Z}^n_2$-action is…
We study relative Seiberg-Witten moduli spaces and define relative invariants for a pair $(X,\Sigma)$ consisting of a smooth, closed, oriented 4-manifold $X$ and a smooth, closed, oriented 2-dimensional submanifold $\Sigma\!\subset\!X$ with…
This paper continues the study of decompositions of a smooth 4-manifold into two handlebodies with handles of index $\leq2$. Part I gave existence results in terms of spines and chain complexes over the fundamental group of the ambient…
It is a well known fact that every embedded symplectic surface $\Sigma$ in a symplectic 4-manifold $(X^4,\omega)$ can be made $J$-holomorphic for some almost-complex structure $J$ compatible with $\omega$. In this paper we investigate when…
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…
Seiberg-Witten theory leads to a delicate interplay between Riemannian geometry and smooth topology in dimension four. In particular, the scalar curvature of any metric must satisfy certain non-trivial estimates if the manifold in question…
We construct an invariant for non-spin 4-manifolds by using 2-torsion cohomology classes of moduli spaces of instantons on SO(3)-bundles. The invariant is an SO(3)-version of Fintushel-Stern's 2-torsion instanton invariant. We show that…
We prove that if a closed, smooth, simply-connected 4-manifold with a circle action admits an almost non-negatively curved sequence of invariant Riemannian metrics, then it also admits a non-negatively curved Riemannian metric invariant…
We develop a complete obstruction theory for the $\mathbb{Z}_2$-index of a compact connected 4-dimensional manifold with free involution. This $\mathbb{Z}_2$-index, equal to the minimum integer $n$ for which there exists an equivariant map…
We show that for any finitely presented group $G$, there is a simply connected closed 4-manifold containing an infinite family of topologically isotopic but smoothly inequivalent 2-links whose 2-link group is $G$. We also show that, if $G$…
We show that whenever a closed symplectic manifold admits a Hamiltonian diffeomorphism with finitely many simple periodic orbits, the manifold has a spherical homology class of degree two with positive symplectic area and positive integral…
We prove a nilpotency theorem for the Bauer-Furuta stable homotopy Seiberg-Witten invariants for smooth closed 4-manifolds with trivial first Betti number.