Related papers: Geography of symplectic Lefschetz fibrations and r…

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 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…

Motivated by the construction of H. Endo and Y. Gurtas, changing a positive relator in Dehn twist generators of the mapping class group by using lantern substitutions, we show that 4-manifold $K3#2\CPb$ equipped with the genus two Lefschetz…

We present constructions of simply connected symplectic 4-manifolds which have (up to sign) one basic class and which fill up the geographical region between the half-Noether and Noether lines.

By applying the lantern relation substitutions to the positive relation of the genus two Lefschetz fibration over $\mathbb{S}^{2}$. We show that $K3\#2 \overline{\mathbb{CP}}{}^{2}$ can be rationally blown down along seven disjoint copies…

We classify symplectically foliated fillings of certain foliated manifolds with a contact structure on the leaves. We show that for the foliated sphere cotangent bundle of the Reeb foliation on the three-sphere, the corresponding foliated…

We prove that a Lefschetz fibration over the disc that, after compactification, has the same singular fibers as an extremal rational elliptic surface can be obtained by deleting a singular fiber and a section from the rational extremal…

We construct symplectic submanifolds of symplectic manifolds with contact border. The boundary of such submanifolds is shown to be a contact submanifold of the contact border. We also give a topological characterization of the constructed…

We construct open symplectic manifolds which are convex at infinity ("Liouville manifolds") and which are diffeomorphic, but not symplectically isomorphic, to cotangent bundles T^*S^{n+1}, for any n+1 \geq 3. These manifolds are constructed…

We discuss a connection between the lantern relation in mapping class groups and the rational blowing down process for 4-manifolds. More precisely, if we change a positive relator in Dehn twist generators of the mapping class group by using…

We construct noncomplex smooth 4-manifolds which admit genus-2 Lefschetz fibrations over S^2. The fibrations are necessarily hyperelliptic, and the resulting 4-manifolds are not even homotopy equivalent to complex surfaces. Furthermore,…

Generalizing work of I. Baykur, K. Hayano, and N. Monden (arXiv:1903.02906), we construct infinite families of symplectic 4-dimensional manifolds, obtained as total spaces of Lefschetz pencils constructed by explicit monodromy…

We give new rational blowdown constructions of exotic CP^2#n(-CP^2) (5\leq n\leq 9) without using elliptic fibrations. We also show that our 4-manifolds admit handle decompositions without 1- and 3-handles, for 7\leq n\leq 9. A strategy for…

We introduce a method to resolve a symplectic orbifold into a smooth symplectic manifold. Then we study how the formality and the Lefschetz property of the symplectic resolution are compared with that of the symplectic orbifold. We also…

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 give a generalization of the concept of near-symplectic structures to 2n dimensions. According to our definition, a closed 2-form \omega on a 2n-manifold M is near-symplectic, if it is symplectic outside a submanifold Z of codimension 3,…

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…

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 show that under appropriate hypotheses, a plumbing of symplectic surfaces in a symplectic 4-manifold admits strongly convex neighborhoods. Moreover the neighborhoods are Lefschetz fibered with an easily-described open book on the…

In this paper we obtain the following results: (1) Any compact Stein surface with boundary embeds naturally into a symplectic Lefschetz fibration over the 2-sphere. (2) There exists a minimal elliptic fibration over the 2-disk, which is not…