Related papers: On the mapping class groups of simply-connected sm…

We prove a diagonalisation theorem for the tautological, or generalised Miller-Morita-Mumford classes of compact, smooth, simply-connected definite $4$-manifolds. Our result can be thought of as a families version of Donaldson's…

We prove the following result: Let $(X,g_0)$ be a complete, connected 4-manifold with uniformly positive isotropic curvature and with bounded geometry. Then there is a finite collection $\mathcal{F}$ of manifolds of the form $\mathbb{S}^3…

Mapping class groups of Haken 3-manifolds enjoy many of the homological finiteness properties of mapping class groups of 2-manifolds of finite type. For example, H(M) has a torsionfree subgroup of finite index, which is geometrically finite…

Let $X$ denote the `conifold smoothing', the symplectic Weinstein manifold which is the complement of a smooth conic in $T^*S^3$, or equivalently the plumbing of two copies of $T^*S^3$ along a Hopf link. Let $Y$ denote the `conifold…

Let $X$ be a smooth, compact, oriented $4$-manifold. Building upon work of Li-Liu, Ruberman, Nakamura and Konno, we consider a families version of Seiberg-Witten theory and obtain obstructions to the existence of certain group actions on…

In this work we relate the known results about the homotopy type of classifying spaces for smooth foliations, with the homology and cohomology of the discrete group of diffeomorphisms of a smooth compact connected oriented manifold. The…

Let $M_n$ be the connect sum of $n$ copies of $S^2 \times S^1$. A classical theorem of Laudenbach says that the mapping class group $\text{Mod}(M_n)$ is an extension of $\text{Out}(F_n)$ by a group $(\mathbb{Z}/2)^n$ generated by sphere…

For each nonnegative integer m we show that any closed, oriented topological four-manifold with fundamental group Z_{4m+2} and odd intersection form, with possibly seven exceptions, either admits no smooth structure or admits infinitely…

For a 3-manifold M, the twist group Twist(M) is the subgroup of the mapping class group Mod(M) generated by twists about embedded 2-spheres. We study the Nielsen realization problem for subgroups of Twist(M). We prove that a nontrivial…

We show that the group ${\Cal D}(M)$ of pseudoisotopy classes of diffeomorphisms of a manifold of dimension $\geq 5$ and of finite fundamental group is commensurable to an arithmetic group. As a result $\pi_0(\text{{\it Diff\,M}})$ is a…

The main theorem shows that if M is an irreducible compact connected orientable 3-manifold with non-empty boundary, then the classifying space BDiff(M rel dM) of the space of diffeomorphisms of M which restrict to the identity map on…

One can define the complexity of a smooth 4-manifold as the minimal sum of the number of disks, strands and crossings in a Kirby diagram. Martelli proved that the number of homeomorphism classes of complexity less than n grows as $n^2$. In…

We show that if $M$ and $N$ have the same homotopy type of simply connected closed smooth $m$-manifolds such that the integral and mod-$2$ cohomologies of $M$ vanish in odd degrees, then their homotopy inertia groups are equal. Let $M^{2n}$…

Given a closed, smooth 4-manifold $X$ and self-diffeomorphism $f$ that is topologically pseudo-isotopic to the identity, we study the question of whether $f$ is moreover smoothly pseudo-isotopic to the identity. If the fundamental group of…

This is a paper in smooth $4$-manifold topology, inspired by the N\'{e}ron-Lang Theorem in number theory. More precisely, we prove that a smooth version $\MW(\pi)$ of Mordell-Weil group of an elliptic fibration $\pi:M\to\Pb^1$ is finitely…

In this note we prove that the mapping class group of a compact topological manifold $M$ with boundary is of finite type, under assumptions on its dimension and connectivity.

We compute the mapping class group of the manifolds $\sharp^g(S^{2k+1}\times S^{2k+1})$ for $k>0$ in terms of the automorphism group of the middle homology and the group of homotopy $(4k+3)$-spheres. We furthermore identify its Torelli…

This self-contained paper is part of a series \cite{FF2,FF3} on actions by diffeomorphisms of infinite groups on compact manifolds. The two main results presented here are: 1) Any homomorphism of (almost any) mapping class group or…

Let Diff(N) and Homeo(N) denote the smooth and topological group of automorphisms respectively that fix the boundary of the n-manifold N, pointwise. We show that the (n-4)-th homotopy group of Homeo(S^1 \times D^{n-1}) is not…

For a 4-manifold $M$ and a knot $k\colon\mathbb{S}^1\hookrightarrow\partial M$ with dual sphere $G\colon\mathbb{S}^2\hookrightarrow\partial M$, we compute the set $\mathbb{D}(M;k)$ of smooth isotopy classes of neat embeddings…