Related papers: How large is the braid monodromy of low-genus Lefs…

Symplectic four-manifolds give rise to Lefschetz fibrations, which are determined by monodromy representations of free groups in mapping class groups. We study the topology of Lefschetz fibrations by analysing the action of the monodromy on…

Let $\Sigma_b$ be a compact Riemann surface of genus $b \geq 2$ and let $\mathsf{P}_2(\Sigma_b)=\pi_1(\Sigma_b \times \Sigma_b - \Delta)$ be the corresponding pure braid group on two strands. A finite quotient $\varphi \colon…

We investigate the bounded cohomology of Lefschetz fibrations. If a Lefschetz fibration has regular fiber of genus at least 2 and it has at least two distinct vanishing cycles, we show that its Euler class is not bounded. As a consequence,…

Questions of geography of various classes of $4$-manifolds have been a central motivating question in $4$-manifold topology. Baykur and Korkmaz asked which small, simply connected, minimal $4$-manifolds admit a genus $2$ Lefschetz…

We prove that for any rational number $r\in (2,8)$, there exists a genus-$g$ Lefschetz fibration over the two-sphere with large enough genus-$g$ having the slope is $r$.

We explicitly construct a genus-$3$ Lefschetz fibration over $\mathbb{S}^{2}$ whose total space is $\mathbb{T}^{2}\times \mathbb{S}^{2}\# 6\overline{\mathbb{C} P^{2}}$ using the monodromy of Matsumoto's genus-$2$ Lefschetz fibration. We…

We give a short proof of a conjecture of Stipsicz on the minimality of fiber sums of Lefschetz fibrations, which was proved earlier by Usher. We then construct the first examples of genus g > 1 Lefschetz fibrations on minimal symplectic…

We consider complex surfaces, viewed as smooth $4$-dimensional manifolds, that admit hyperelliptic Lefschetz fibrations over the $2$-sphere. In this paper, we show that the minimal number of singular fibers of such fibrations is equal to…

Kodaira's classification of singular fibers in elliptic fibrations and its translation into the language of monodromies and Lefschetz fibrations has been a boon to the study of 4-manifolds. In this article, we begin the work of translating…

In this paper, we investigate the moduli of surfaces of general type admitting genus 2 fibrations with irregularity q = g_b + 1, where g_b >= 2 is the genus of the base. We prove that smooth fibrations are parametrized by a unique component…

Let M be a smooth 4-manifold which admits a relatively minimal hyperelliptic genus h Lefschetz fibration over the 2-sphere. If all of the vanishing cycles for this fibration are nonseparating curves, then we show that M is a 2-fold cover of…

Let G be a reductive group and let Bun_G denote the moduli stack of G-bundles on a smooth projective curve. We begin the study of the singularities of a canonical compactification of Bun_G due to V. Drinfeld (unpublished), which we refer to…

We consider simply-connected $4$-manifolds admitting Lefschetz fibrations over the $2$-sphere. We explicitly construct nonhyperelliptic and hyperelliptic Lefschetz fibrations of genus $4$ on simply-connected $4$-manifolds which are exotic…

We show how certain stabilizations produce infinitely many closed oriented 4-manifolds which are the total spaces of genus g surface bundles (resp. Lefschetz fibrations) over genus h surfaces and have non-zero signature, but do not admit…

We investigate the possible self-intersection numbers for sections of surface bundles and Lefschetz fibrations over surfaces. When the fiber genus g and the base genus h are positive, we prove that the adjunction bound 2h-2 is the only…

In this article we construct a family of genus two Lefschetz fibrations $f_{n}: X_{\theta_n} \rightarrow \mathbb{S}^{2}$ with $e(X_{\theta_n})=11$, $b^{+}_{2}(X_{\theta_n})=1$, and $c_1^{2}(X_{\theta_n})=1$ by applying a single lantern…

Let $S=S_{g,p}$ be a compact, orientable surface of genus $g$ with $p$ punctures and such that $d(S):=3g-3+p>0$. The mapping class group $\textup{Mod}_S$ acts properly discontinuously on the Teichm\"uller space $\mathcal T(S)$ of marked…

Given a projective surface and a generic projection to the plane, the braid monodromy factorization (and thus, the braid monodromy type) of the complement of its branch curve is one of the most important topological invariants, stable on…

We show that there exists an admissible nonorientable genus $g$ Lefschetz fibration with only one singular fiber over a closed orientable surface of genus $h$ if and only if $g \geq 4$ and $h \geq 1$.

Starting with an O(2)-principal fibration over a closed oriented surface F_g, g>=1, a 2-fold covering of the total space is said to be special when the monodromy sends the fiber SO(2) = S^1 to the nontrivial element of Z_2. Adapting D…