Related papers: The Whitehead group and stably trivial $G$-smoothi…

For a closed Riemannian manifold $M$ with a compact Lie group $G$ acting by isometries, we show that there are infinitely many $G$-invariant minimal hypersurfaces. Under the assumption that $M$ contains at most a finite number of minimal…

We prove that closed connected contact manifolds of dimension $\geq 5$ related by an h-cobordism with a flexible Weinstein structure become contactomorphic after some kind of stabilization. We also provide examples of non-conjugate contact…

We interpret heterotic M-theory in terms of h-cobordism, that is the eleven-manifold is a product of the ten-manifold times an interval is translated into a statement that the former is a cobordism of the latter which is a homtopy…

In this paper we consider a class of connected closed $G$-manifolds with a non-empty finite fixed point set, each $M$ of which is totally non-homologous to zero in $M_G$ (or $G$-equivariantly formal), where $G={\Bbb Z}_2$. With the help of…

We prove the following result: Let $(M,g_0)$ be a complete noncompact manifold of dimension $n\geq 12$ with isotropic curvature bounded below by a positive constant, with scalar curvature bounded above, and with injectivity radius bounded…

We prove a structure theorem for closed topological manifolds of cohomogeneity one; this result corrects an oversight in the literature. We complete the equivariant classification of closed, simply connected cohomogeneity one topological…

Let $M$ and $N$ be smooth closed connected aspherical manifolds with good (in the sense of Serre) fundamental groups $G$ and $H$. We show that if $\widehat G\cong \widehat H$, then $M$ and $N$ are cobordant and the signatures of $M$ and $N$…

Any two homologous surfaces of the same genus embedded in a smooth 4-manifold X with simply-connected complements are shown to be smoothly isotopic in the connected sum of X and the product of a 2-sphere with itself, if the surfaces are…

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 introduce the notion of (homological) G-smoothness for a complex G-variety X, where G is a connected affine algebraic group. This is based on the notion of smoothness for dg algebras and uses a suitable enhancement of the G-equivariant…

We give two constructions of surfaces in simply-connected 4-manifolds with non simply-connected complements. One is an iteration of the twisted rim surgery introduced by the first author. We also construct, for any group G satisfying some…

For a compact connected Lie group $G$ acting as isometries on a compact orientable Riemannian manifold $M^{n+1},$ and cohomogeneity not equal to 0 or 2, we prove the existence of a nontrivial embedded $G$-invariant minimal hypersurface,…

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…

We say that a topological $n$-manifold $N$ is a cubical $n$-manifold if it is contained in the $n$-skeleton of the canonical cubulation $\mathcal{C}$ of ${\mathbb{R}}^{n+k}$ ($k\geq1$). In this paper, we prove that any closed, oriented…

We prove that 1) There exist infinitely many non-trivial codimension one "thick" knots in $\mathbb{R}^5$; 2) For each closed four-dimensional smooth manifold $M$ and for each sufficiently small positive $\epsilon$ the set of isometry…

In this paper, we consider a closed Riemannian manifold $M^{n+1}$ with dimension $3\leq n+1\leq 7$, and a compact Lie group $G$ acting as isometries on $M$ with cohomogeneity at least $3$. Suppose the union of non-principal orbits…

We characterise the set of fundamental groups for which there exist $n$-manifolds that are $h$-cobordant (hence homotopy equivalent) but not simple homotopy equivalent, when $n$ is sufficiently large. In particular, for $n \ge 12$ even, we…

This paper explores various differentiable structures on the product manifold $M \times \mathbb{S}^k$, where $M$ is either a 4-dimensional closed, oriented, smooth manifold or a simply connected 5-dimensional closed, smooth manifold. We…

Let X be an arbitrary hyperbolic geodesic metric space and let G be a countable non-elementary weakly acylindrical group of isometries of X. We show that the second bounded cohomology group of G with real coefficients or with coefficients…

A smooth five-dimensional s-cobordism becomes a smooth product if stabilized by a finite number n of $S^2xS^2x[0,1]$'s. We show that for amenable fundamental groups, the minimal n is subextensive in covers, i.e., n(cover)/index(cover) has…