Related papers: An Unexpected Rational Blowdown
We give an algorithm which produces infinitely many pairwise exotic Stein fillings of the same contact 3-manifolds, applying positive allowable Lefschetz fibrations over the disk. As a corollary, for a large class of Stein fillings, we…
This paper introduces path triangulation of points in a bounded, simply connected surface region, replacing ordinary triangles in a Delaunay triangulation with path triangles from homotopy theory. A {\bf path triangle} has a border that is…
We extend recent work of Brendan Owens by constructing a doubly infinite family of Stein rational homology balls which can be smoothly but not symplectically embedded in CP^2.
We construct a Kirby diagram of the rational homology ball used in "generalized rational blow-down" developed by Jongil Park. The diagram consists of a dotted circle and a torus knot. The link is simpler, but the parameters are a little…
In this paper, a $\mathbb{Q}$HD singularity is a weighted homogeneous normal surface singularity admitting a rational homology disk ($\mathbb{Q}$HD) smoothing. These singularities are rational but often not log canonical. We classify all…
We provide related Dehn surgery descriptions for rational homology spheres and a class of their regular finite cyclic covering spaces. As an application, we use the surgery descriptions to relate the Casson invariants of the covering spaces…
We consider the canonical contact structures on links of rational surface singularities with reduced fundamental cycle. These singularities can be characterized by their dual resolution graphs: the graph is a tree, and the weight of each…
Greene and Owens explore cubiquitous lattices as an obstruction to rational homology 3-spheres bounding rational homology 4-balls. The purpose of this article is to better understand which sublattices of $\mathbb{Z}^n$ are cubiquitous with…
We study the exchange of stability in scalar reaction-diffusion equations which feature a slow passage through transcritical and pitchfork type singularities in the reaction term, using a novel adaptation of the geometric blow-up method.…
Let $M$ be either $S^2\times S^2$ or the one point blow-up $\cp# \bcp$ of $\cp$. In both cases $M$ carries a family of symplectic forms $\om_\la$, where $\la > -1$ determines the cohomology class $[\om_\la]$. This paper calculates the…
A study of symplectic actions of a finite group $G$ on smooth 4-manifolds is initiated. The central new idea is the use of $G$-equivariant Seiberg-Witten-Taubes theory in studying the structure of the fixed-point set of these symmetries.…
We study the rational homotopy types of classifying spaces of automorphism groups of smooth simply connected manifolds of dimension at least five. We give dg Lie algebra models for the homotopy automorphisms and the block diffeomorphisms of…
Herein, fundamentals of topology and symmetry breaking are used to understand crystallization and geometrical frustration in topologically close-packed structures. This frames solidification from a new perspective that is unique from…
In this paper we prove the existence of rational homology balls smoothly embedded in regular neighborhoods of certain linear chains of smooth $2$-spheres by using techniques from minimal model program for 3-dimensional complex algebraic…
We prove a multi-valued $C^{1,\alpha}$ regularity theorem for the varifolds in the class $\mathcal{S}_2$ (i.e., stable codimension one stationary integral $n$-varifolds admitting no triple junction classical singularities) which are…
Given a symplectic 4-manifold $(X,\omega)$ with rational symplectic form, Auroux constructed branched coverings to $(CP^2,\omega_{FS})$. By modifying a previous construction of Lambert-Cole--Meier--Starkston, we prove that the branch locus…
In this paper, we study the topology of topologically regular 4-dimensional open non-negatively curved Alexandrov spaces. These spaces occur naturally as the blow-up limits of compact Riemannian manifolds with lower curvature bound. These…
In this second paper of a two-part series, we prove that whenever a contact 3-manifold admits a uniform spinal open book decomposition with planar pages, its (weak, strong and/or exact) symplectic and Stein fillings can be classified up to…
In this paper we obtain the following results: (1) Any compact Stein surface with boundary embeds naturally into a symplectic Lefschetz fibration over the 2-sphere. (2) There exists a minimal elliptic fibration over the 2-disk, which is not…
Real blow-up, including inhomogeneous versions, of boundary faces of a manifold (with corners) is an important tool for resolving singularities, degeneracies and competing notions of homogeneity. These constructions are shown to be…