Related papers: Handle decomposition complexity and representation…

We show that only finitely many links in a closed 3-manifold share the same complement, up to twists along discs and annuli. Using the same techniques, we prove that by adding 2-handles on the same link we get only finitely many smooth…

We define a sutured cobordism category of surfaces with boundary and 3-manifolds with corners. In this category a sutured 3-manifold is regarded as a morphism from the empty surface to itself. In the process we define a new class of…

We give a method for obtaining a handle decomposition of an $n$-manifold if the manifold is given by isometric side-pairings of a polyhedron in $\en$, $\sn$ or $\hn$. Every cycle of $k$-faces on the polyhedron corresponds to an…

The topology of Stein surfaces and contact 3-manifolds is studied by means of handle decompositions. A simple characterization of homeomorphism types of Stein surfaces is obtained --- they correspond to open handlebodies with all handles of…

This paper is the second part of our work on 4-dimensional 2-handlebodies. In the first part (arXiv:math.GT/0407032) it is shown that up to certain set of local moves, connected simple coverings of B^4 branched over ribbon surfaces,…

It is one of the most important facts in 4-dimensional topology that not every spherical homology class of a 4-manifold can be represented by an embedded sphere. In 1978, M. Freedman and R. Kirby showed that in the simply connected case,…

We calculate the Heegaard Floer homologies for three-manifolds obtained by plumbings of spheres specified by certain graphs. Our class of graphs is sufficiently large to describe, for example, all Seifert fibered rational homology spheres.…

Using the conjugation symmetry on Heegaard Floer complexes, we define a three-manifold invariant called involutive Heegaard Floer homology, which is meant to correspond to $\mathbb{Z}_4$-equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer homology. Further,…

Meier and Zupan showed that every surface in the four-sphere admits a bridge trisection and can therefore be represented by three simple tangles. This raises the possibility of applying methods from link homology to knotted surfaces. We use…

We consider the question of when a rational homology 3-sphere is rational homology cobordant to a connected sum of lens spaces. We prove that every rational homology cobordism class in the subgroup generated by lens spaces is represented by…

We explain how a version of Floer homology can be used as an invariant of symplectic manifolds with $b_1>0$. As a concrete example, we look at four-manifolds produced from braids by a surgery construction. The outcome shows that the…

A theorem on the existence of the unique minimal topologic handle decomposition of differentiable simply connected five-dimensional manifolds is proved. For a decomposition of this sort, the number of handles of each index is given.

In this paper we define and investigate Z/2-homology cobordism invariants of Z/2-homology 3-spheres which turn out to be related to classical invariants of knots. As an application we show that many lens spaces have infinite order in the…

Using Heegaard Floer homology, we construct a numerical invariant for any smooth, oriented $4$-manifold $X$ with the homology of $S^1 \times S^3$. Specifically, we show that for any smoothly embedded $3$-manifold $Y$ representing a…

We establish a structural understanding of the involutive Heegaard Floer homology for all linear combinations of almost-rational (AR) plumbed three-manifolds. We use this to show that the Neumann-Siebenmann invariant is a homology cobordism…

We compute the oriented cobordism group of fold maps of 4-manifolds into the space with all the possible restrictions (and also with no restriction) to the singular fibers. We also give geometric invariants which describe completely the…

Round handles are affiliated with smooth 4-manifolds in two major ways: 5-dimensional round handles appear extensively as the building blocks in cobordisms between 4-manifolds, whereas 4-dimensional round handles are the building blocks of…

The smooth rational homology cobordism group of rational homology three spheres, T, contains subgroups T_p generated by 3-manifolds with first homology p-torsion, where p is a prime. Rochlin's theorem and gauge theoretic methods show that…

A central problem in low-dimensional topology asks which homology $3$-spheres bound contractible $4$-manifolds or homology $4$-balls. In this paper, we address this question for plumbed $3$-manifolds and we present two new infinite…

Bordered Floer homology assigns invariants to 3-manifolds with boundary, such that the Heegaard Floer homology of a closed 3-manifold, split into two pieces, can be recovered as a tensor product of the bordered invariants of the pieces. We…