Related papers: Corks for exotic diffeomorphisms

We show that two orientable, four-dimensional folded symplectic toric manifolds are isomorphic provided that their orbit spaces have trivial degree-two integral cohomology and there exists a diffeomorphism of the orbit spaces (as manifolds…

We formulate and study the notion of $d$-skeletal diffeology, which generalizes that of wire diffeology, introducing the dual notion of $d$-coskeletal diffeology. We first show that paracompact finite-dimensional $C^\infty$-manifolds $M_d$…

We study smooth, proper embeddings of noncompact surfaces in 4-manifolds, focusing on exotic planes and annuli, i.e., embeddings pairwise homeomorphic to the standard embeddings of R^2 and R^2-int D^2 in R^4. We encounter two uncountable…

We construct stable minimal hypersurfaces with simple topology in certain compact $4$-manifolds $X$ with boundary, where $X$ embeds into a smooth manifold homeomorphic to $S^4$. For example, if $X$ is equipped with a Riemannian metric $g$…

In this paper we introduce a new methodology for smooth rigidity of Anosov diffeomorphisms based on "matching functions." The main observation is that under certain bunching assumptions on the diffeomorphism the periodic cycle functionals…

A unified summary is given of the existence theory of Stein manifolds in all dimensions, based on published and pending literature. Eliashberg's characterization of manifolds admitting Stein structures requires an extra delicate hypothesis…

We show the following result: Let $(M,g_0)$ be a compact manifold of dimension $n\geq 12$ with positive isotropic curvature. Then $M$ is diffeomorphic to a spherical space form, or a quotient manifold of $\mathbb{S}^{n-1}\times \mathbb{R}$…

Kreck and Schafer produced the first examples of stably diffeomorphic closed smooth 4-manifolds which are not homotopy equivalent. They were constructed by applying the doubling construction to 2-complexes over certain finite abelian groups…

As shown by H. Gluck in 1962, the diffeotopy group of S^1 \times S^2 is isomorphic to Z_2 + Z_2 + Z_2. Here an alternative proof of this result is given, relying on contact topology. We then discuss two applications to contact topology: (i)…

We give a new proof that compact infra-solvmanifolds with isomorphic fundamental groups are smoothly diffeomorphic. More generally, we prove rigidity results for manifolds which are constructed using affine actions of virtually polycyclic…

We prove that for every natural number k there are simply connected topological four-manifolds which have at leat k distinct smooth structures supporting Einstein metrics, and also have infinitely many distinct smooth structures not…

A localisation of the category of n-manifolds is introduced by formally inverting the connected sum construction with a chosen n-manifold Y. On the level of automorphism groups, this leads to the stable diffeomorphism groups of n-manifolds.…

We prove that a variety of examples of minimal complex surfaces admit exotic diffeomorphisms, providing the first known instances of exotic diffeomorphisms of irreducible 4-manifolds. We also give sufficient conditions for the boundary Dehn…

We consider the question of extending a smooth homotopy coherent finite cyclic group action on the boundary of a smooth 4-manifold to its interior. As a result, we prove that Dehn twists along any Seifert homology sphere, except the…

In this paper, we classify smooth 5-manifolds with fundamental group isomorphic to $\z/2$ and universal cover diffeomorphic to $S^2 \times S^3$. This gives a classification of smooth free involutions on $S^2 \times S^3$ up to conjugation.

We prove that if two conformal embeddings between Riemann surfaces with finite topology are homotopic, then they are isotopic through conformal embeddings. Furthermore, we show that the space of all conformal embeddings in a given homotopy…

A classical result of Sampson and Schoen-Yau in 1978 states that every diffeomorphism between compact hyperbolic Riemann surfaces is homotopic to an harmonic diffeomorphism. As conjectured by Schoen in 1993 and partially proved by Wan in…

From a handlebody-theoretic perspective, the simplest compact, contractible 4-manifolds, other than the 4-ball, are Mazur manifolds. We produce the first pairs of Mazur manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic. Our…

In [Bre19], Simon Brendle showed that any compact manifold of dimension $n\geq12$ with positive isotropic curvature and contains no nontrivial incompressible $(n-1)-$dimensional space form is diffeomorphic to a connected sum of finitely…

The main result is that an s-cobordism (topological or smooth) of 4-manifolds has a product structure outside a ``core'' sub s-cobordism. These cores are arranged to have quite a bit of structure, for example they are smooth and abstractly…