Related papers: One stabilization is not enough for closed knotted…
We classify nonnegatively curved simply connected 4-manifolds with circle symmetry up to equivariant diffeomorphisms. The main problem is rule out knotted curves in the singular set of the orbit space. As an extension of this work we…
Given two closed orientable surfaces, the Hurwitz existence problem asks whether there exists a branched cover between them having prescribed global degree and local degrees over the branching points. The Riemann-Hurwitz formula gives a…
We investigate the realisability of the Casson-Sullivan invariant for homeomorphisms of smooth $4$-manifolds, which is the obstruction to a homeomorphism being stably pseudo-isotopic to a diffeomorphism, valued in the third cohomology of…
Let n be aninteger>4. There is a smoothly knotted n-dimensional sphere in (n+2)-space such that the singular point set of its projection in (n+1)-space consists of double points and that the components of the singular point set are two.…
We prove a general specialization theorem which implies stable irrationality for a wide class of quadric surface bundles over rational surfaces. As an application, we solve with the exception of two cases, the stable rationality problem for…
We show that for any k>1, stratified sets of finite complexity are insufficient to realize all homology classes of codimension k in all smooth manifolds. We also prove a similar result concerning smooth generic maps whose double-point sets…
Many three dimensional manifolds are two-fold branched covers of the three dimensional sphere. However, there are some that are not. This paper includes exposition about two-fold branched covers and many examples. It shows that there are…
It is known that every exotic smooth structure on a simply connected closed 4-manifold is determined by a codimention zero compact contractible Stein submanifold and an involution on its boundary. Such a pair is called a cork. In this…
We study the stability of closed, not necessarily smooth, equilibrium surfaces of an anisotropic surface energy for which the Wulff shape is not necessarily smooth. We show that if the Cahn Hoffman field can be extended continuously to the…
We show that for an arbitrarily given closed Riemannian manifold $M$ admitting a point $p \in M$ with a single cut point, every closed Riemannian manifold $N$ admitting a point $q \in N$ with a single cut point is diffeomorphic to $M$ if…
We study compact orientable essential surfaces in knot exteriors in the 3-sphere. The genus $g$, the number of boundary components $b$, and the boundary slope $p/q$ are fundamental invariants of an essential surface. The \textit{realization…
It is not known whether the realisation part of the $s$-cobordism theorem holds for smooth 4-manifolds, nor whether every pair of smoothly $h$-cobordant 4-manifolds is also smoothly $s$-cobordant. We provide some new conditions under which…
We show that the group of homeomorphisms of a compact contractible $d$-manifold which fix the boundary is contractible, as long as $d \geq 6$. We deduce this from a strong uniqueness statement for one-sided $h$-cobordisms.
We consider the set of connected surfaces in the 4-ball with boundary a fixed knot in the 3-sphere. We define the stabilization distance between two surfaces as the minimal $g$ such that we can get from one to the other using stabilizations…
Given a closed four-manifold $X$ with an indefinite intersection form, we consider smoothly embedded surfaces in $X \setminus $int$(B^4)$, with boundary a knot $K \subset S^3$. We give several methods to bound the genus of such surfaces in…
In this paper we present a new proof of the homological stability of the moduli space of closed surfaces in a simply connected background space $K$, which we denote by $S_g (K)$. The homology stability of surfaces in $K$ with an arbitrary…
We study Bridgeland stability conditions on smooth surfaces arising from birational morphisms $S \to T$ to a singular surface. Assuming that $T$ has only ADE singularities or certain cyclic quotient singularities, we produce pre-stability…
We answer a question of Livingston from 1982 by producing Seifert surfaces of the same genus for a knot in $S^3$ that do not become isotopic when their interiors are pushed into $B^4$. In particular, we identify examples where the surfaces…
We show the existence of infinitely many knot exteriors where each of which contains meridional essential surfaces of any genus and (even) number of boundary components. That is, the compact surfaces that have a meridional essential…
We show that two closed, connected $4$-manifolds with finite fundamental groups are $\mathbb{CP}^2$-stably homeomorphic if and only if their quadratic $2$-types are stably isomorphic and their Kirby-Siebenmann invariant agrees.