Related papers: Surfaces in 4-manifolds and extendible mapping cla…

We prove some open book embedding results in the contact category. For example, we show that a large class of contact 3-manifolds admit contact open book embedding in the standard contact 5- sphere. We also prove that all the Ustilovsky (4m…

We explicitly construct new subgroups of the mapping class groups of an uncountable collection of infinite-type surfaces, including, but not limited to, free groups, Baumslag-Solitar groups, mapping class groups of other surfaces, and a…

In this note, we discuss embeddings of $3$--manifolds via open books. First we show that every open book of every closed orientable $3$--manifold admits an open book embedding in any open book decompistion of $S^2 \times S^3$ and $S^2…

We give an example of a smooth characteristic embedding of a torus in $\s^2 \times \s^2 \# \s^1 \times \s^3$ such that there exists no diffeomorphism of the ambient $4$-manifold that induces the Dehn twist along a meridian of the torus, but…

Given a sequence of properly embedded minimal surfaces in a $3$-manifold with local bounds on area and genus, we prove subsequential convergence, smooth away from a discrete set, to a smooth embedded limit surface, possibly with…

Let $S_{g,1,p}$ be an orientable surface of genus $g$ with one boundary component and $p$ punctures. Let $\mathcal{M}_{g,1,p}$ be the mapping-class group of $S_{g,1,p}$ relative to the boundary. We construct homomorphisms…

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…

In this paper we compute the mapping class group of simply-connected closed smooth manifolds $M$ with integral homology $H_{*}(M) \cong \mathbb Z \oplus \mathbb Z \oplus \mathbb Z$ provided that $\dim M \ne 4$.

This paper is the fourth in a series where we describe the space of all embedded minimal surfaces of fixed genus in a fixed (but arbitrary) closed 3-manifold. The key is to understand the structure of an embedded minimal disk in a ball in…

We study the possibility of realizing exotic smooth structures on punctured simply connected $4$-manifolds as leaves of a codimension one foliation on a compact manifold. In particular, we show the existence of uncountably many smooth open…

We show that a smooth embedding of a closed 3-manifold in S^3 x R can be isotoped so that every generic level divides S^3 x t into two handlebodies (i.e., is Heegaard) provided the original embedding has a unique local maximum with respect…

A link in the 3-sphere is homotopically trivial, according to Milnor, if its components bound disjoint maps of disks in the 4-ball. This paper concerns the question of what spaces give rise to the same class of homotopically trivial links…

Let X be a simply-connected closed oriented 4-manifold and A an embedded surface of genus g and negative self-intersection -N. We show that for fixed genus g there is an upper bound on N if the homology class of A is divisible or…

For a simply-connected closed manifold $X$ of $\dim X \neq 4$, the mapping class group $\pi_0(\mathrm{Diff}(X))$ is known to be finitely generated. We prove that analogous finite generation fails in dimension 4. Namely, we show that there…

We exhibit the first examples of compact orientable hyperbolic manifolds that do not have any spin structure. We show that such manifolds exist in all dimensions $n \geq 4$. The core of the argument is the construction of a compact…

Round fold maps are smooth maps on closed manifolds which are locally represented as the product maps of Morse functions and identity maps on open disks and whose singularity is realized as concentrically embedded spheres. The author…

In this article, using combinatorial techniques of mapping class groups, we show that a Stein fillable integral homology $3$-sphere supported by an open book decomposition with page a $4$-holed sphere admits a unique Stein filling up to…

For a non-orientable closed surface standardly embedded in the 4-sphere, a diffeomorphism over this surface is extendable if and only if this diffeomorphism preserves the Guillou-Marin quadratic form of this embedded surface.

A strategy for constructing an embedded sphere in a 4-manifold realizing a given homology class which has been successfully applied in the past is to represent the class as a first step stably by an embedded sphere, i.e. after adding…

Closed (and simply-connected) manifolds whose dimensions are greater than 4 are classified via sophisticated algebraic and abstract theory such as surgery theory and homotopy theory. It is difficult to handle 3 or 4-dimensional closed…