Related papers: Corks, covers, and complex curves

We prove a localization theorem for exotic diffeomorphisms, showing that every diffeomorphism of a compact simply-connected 4-manifold that is isotopic to the identity after stabilizing with one copy of $S^2 \times S^2$, is smoothly…

It is shown that any finite list of smooth closed simply-connected 4-manifolds homeomorphic to a given one X can be obtained by removing a single compact contractible submanifold (or cork) from X, and then regluing it by powers of a…

I construct "fake algebraic curves" in $Cp^2$. More precisely, for any k>2, I construct infinitely many pairwise smoothly non-isotopic (and moreover not ambient diffeomorphic) smooth surfaces $F\subset Cp^2$ homeomorphic to a non-singular…

A fundamental result in 4-manifold topology asserts that any two exotic smooth structures on a simply-connected, closed 4-manifold differ by a cork twist: the operation of removing a compact, contractible, codimension-zero submanifold and…

By using corks we construct diffeomorphic ribbon disks $D\subset B^{4}$, which are non-isotopic rel boundary to each other.

We investigate two specific contractible manifolds (one Stein, and the other non-Stein) whose boundaries have non-trivial mapping class groups. In both cases we show that every diffeomorphism of their boundary extends to a diffeomorphism of…

We prove that, if two germs of plane curves $(C,0)$ and $(C',0)$ with at least one singular branch are equivalent by a (real) smooth diffeomorphism, then $C$ is complex isomorphic to $C'$ or to $\overline{C'}$. A similar result was shown by…

A cork is a smooth, contractible, oriented, compact 4-manifold $W$ together with a self-diffeomorphism $f$ of the boundary 3-manifold that cannot extend to a self-diffeomorphism of $W$; the cork is said to be strong if $f$ cannot extend to…

In this paper we prove that the unit ball $\mathbb{B}$ of $\mathbb{C}^2$ admits complete properly embedded complex curves of any given topological type. Moreover, we provide examples containing any given closed discrete subset of…

We construct a compact, contractible 4-manifold $C$, an infinite-order self-diffeomorphism $f$ of its boundary, and a smooth embedding of $C$ into a closed, simply connected 4-manifold $X$, such that the manifolds obtained by cutting $C$…

This paper studies properly embedded surfaces in the 4-ball that are exotically knotted (i.e., topologically but not smoothly isotopic), and leverages this local phenomenon to study surfaces in larger 4-manifolds. The main results provide a…

We provide an approach to study exotic phenomena in relatively small 4-manifolds that captures many different exotic behaviors under one umbrella. These phenomena include exotic smooth structures on 4-manifolds with $b_2=1$, examples of…

It is known that every compact Stein 4-manifolds can be embedded into a simply connected, minimal, closed, symplectic 4-manifold. By using this property, we discuss a new method of constructing corks. This method generates a large class of…

In this note we prove an effective characterization of when two finite-degree covers of a connected, orientable surface of negative Euler characteristic are isomorphic in terms of which curves have simple elevations, weakening the…

We study the existence of topologically closed complex curves normalized by bordered Riemann surfaces in complex spaces. Our main result is that such curves abound in any noncompact complex space admitting an exhaustion function whose Levi…

We construct exotic copies of $\mathbb{R}^4$ with nontrivial compactly supported mapping class groups of arbitrarily large rank. This follows from a modification of the construction of the diffeomorphism corks of arXiv:2407.04696 that makes…

We define a suitably tame class of singular symplectic curves in 4-manifolds, namely those whose singularities are modeled on complex curve singularities. We study the corresponding symplectic isotopy problem, with a focus on rational…

We introduce a method to detect exotic surfaces without explicitly using a smooth 4-manifold invariant or an invariant of a 4-manifold-surface pair in the construction. Our main tools are two versions of families (Seiberg-Witten)…

We prove that a compact Riemann surface can be realized as a pseudo-holomorphic curve of $(\mathbb{R}^4,J)$, for some almost complex structure $J$ if and only if it is an elliptic curve. Furthermore we show that any (almost) complex…

In this manuscript we prove that if two cuspidal plane curves have equivalent braid monodromy factorizations, then they are smoothly isotopic in the plane. As a consequence of this and the Chisini conjecture, we obtain that if two…