Related papers: Doubles without open book decompositions from high…

Given an arbitrary non-zero simplicial cycle and a generic vector coloring of its vertices, there is a way to produce a graded Poincare duality algebra associated with these data. The procedure relies on the theory of volume polynomials and…

Makeev conjectured that every constant-width body is inscribed in the dual difference body of a regular simplex. We prove that homologically, there are an odd number of such circumscribing bodies in dimension 3, and therefore geometrically…

In all dimensions $n \ge 5$, we prove the existence of closed orientable hyperbolic manifolds that do not admit any $\text{spin}^c$ structure, and in fact we show that there are infinitely many commensurability classes of such manifolds.…

Since there is no hyperbolic Dehn filling theorem for higher dimensions, it is challenging to construct explicit hyperbolic manifolds of small volume in dimension at least four. Here, we build up closed hyperbolic 4-manifolds of volume…

We outline the proof that non-triangulable manifolds exist in any dimension greater than four. The arguments involve homology cobordism invariants coming from the Pin(2) symmetry of the Seiberg-Witten equations. We also explore a related…

For every $g\ge 2$ and $n\ge4$, we provide an $n-$manifold $M$ and a continuous $2-$sided map $f\colon S\longrightarrow M$, where $S$ is a closed genus $g$ surface, such that no simple loop is contained in $\text{ker}(\,f_*\,)$. This…

We show that in all dimensions >7 there are closed aspherical manifolds whose fundamental groups have nontrivial center but do not possess any topological circle actions. This disproves a conjectured converse (proposed by Conner and…

Gravity duals for little string theories --- which give rise to four-dimensional theories that undergo permanent confinement in the infrared --- have not been studied in great detail. We address this question in the framework of heterotic…

Murphy and the second author showed that a generic closed Riemannian manifold has no totally geodesic submanifolds, provided it is at least four dimensional. Lytchak and Petrunin established the same thing in dimension 3. For the higher…

For a knot $K$ in the 3-sphere and a simply connected closed 4-manifold $X$, we define the $X$-double slice genus of $K$, extending the notion from the case when $X$ is the 4-sphere. We show that for each integer $n$, there exists an…

We show that the fundamental groups of smooth $4$-manifolds that admit geometric decompositions in the sense of Thurston have asymptotic dimension at most four, and equal to 4 when aspherical. We also show that closed $3$-manifold groups…

We show that for any closed Riemannian manifold with dimension at least two and with nonpositive curvature, if it admits an isolated, closed totally geodesic submanifold of codimension one, then its simplicial volume is positive. As a…

Let ${\mathfrak M}$ be a closed, orientable, hyperbolic 3-orbifold whose singular set is a link, and such that $\pi_1({\mathfrak M})$ contains no hyperbolic triangle group. We show that if the underlying manifold $|{\mathfrak M}|$ is…

The T-duality transformations between open and closed superstrings in different D-manifolds are generalized to curved backgrounds with commuting isometries. We address some global aspects like the occurrence of orientifold boundaries in…

We prove that the real parts of equivariant (but non-invariant) eigenfunctions of generic bundle metrics on nontrivial principal $S^1$ bundles over manifolds of any dimension have connected nodal sets and exactly 2 nodal domains. This…

We show that there exist infinitely many closed 3-manifolds that do not embed in closed symplectic 4-manifolds, disproving a conjecture of Etnyre-Min-Mukherjee. To do this, we construct L-spaces that cannot bound positive or negative…

We use spinal open books to construct contact manifolds with infinitely many different Weinstein fillings in any odd dimension $> 1$, which were previously unknown for dimensions equal to $4n+1$. The argument does not involve understanding…

Given a closed manifold M, we prove the upper bound of (n+d)/2 for the length of a product of systoles that can form a curvature-free lower bound for the total volume of M, in the spirit of M. Gromov's systolic inequalities. Here n is the…

It is known by A. Loi and R. Piergallini that a closed, oriented, smooth 3-manifold is Stein fillable if and only if it has a positive open book decomposition. In the present paper we will show that for every link L in a Stein fillable…

Let $W$ be a nonorientable $4$-dimensional handlebody without $3$- and $4$-handles. We show that $W$ admits a Lefschetz fibration over the $2$-disk, whose regular fiber is a nonorientable surface with nonempty boundary. This is an analogue…