Related papers: Exotic structures and adjunction inequality

We consider several differential-topological invariants of compact 4-manifolds which directly arise from Riemannian variational problems. Using recent results of Bauer and Furuta, we compute these invariants in many cases that were…

It is known that every compact Stein 4-manifolds can be embedded into a simply connected, minimal, closed, symplectic 4-manifold. By using this property, we discuss a new method of constructing corks. This method generates a large class of…

We show that the pre-order defined on the category of contact manifolds by arbitrary symplectic cobordisms is considerably less rigid than its counterparts for exact or Stein cobordisms: in particular, we exhibit large new classes of…

I review some recent results on four-manifold invariants which have been obtained in the context of topological quantum field theory. I focus on three different aspects: (a) the computation of correlation functions, which give explicit…

The essential role played by differentiable structures in physics is reviewed in light of recent mathematical discoveries that topologically trivial space-time models, especially the simplest one, ${\bf R^4}$, possess a rich multiplicity of…

We illustrate the rich landscape of 4-manifold topology through the lens of counterexamples. We consider several of the most commonly studied equivalence relations on 4-manifolds and how they are related to one another. We explain…

New obstructions for embedding one compact oriented 3-manifold in another are given. A theorem of D. Krebes concerning 4-tangles embedded in links arises as a special case. Algebraic and skein-theoretic generalizations for 2n-tangles…

It is known that the only Stein filling of the standard contact structure on S^3 is B^4. In this paper, we construct simply connected exotic compact Stein 4-manifold pairs for any Betti number $b_2 \geq 1$; we do this by enlarging corks and…

In this article, we find the complete list of all contact structures (up to isotopy) on closed three-manifolds which are supported by an open book decomposition having planar pages with three (but not less) boundary components. We…

By using cobordism theoretic arguments similar to those in the literature on positive scalar curvature metrics we prove the existence of contact structures on 5-dimensional spin manifolds whose fundamental group is a group of odd order (not…

We study some special almost complex structures on strictly pseudoconvex domains. They appear naturally as limits under a nonisotroping scaling procedure and play a role of model objects in the geometry of almost complex manifolds with…

For any integer $n\geq 2$, we construct an infinite family of Stein fillable contact $(4n-1)$-manifolds each of which admits infinitely many pairwise homotopy inequivalent Stein fillings.

In this paper, we survey recent works on the structure of the mapping class groups of surfaces mainly from the point of view of topology. We then discuss several possible directions for future research. These include the relation between…

We present simple examples of finite-dimensional connected homogeneous spaces (they are actually topological manifolds) with nonhomogeneous and nonrigid factors. In particular, we give an elementary solution of an old problem in general…

Despite spectacular advances in defining invariants for simply connected smooth and symplectic 4-dimensional manifolds and the discovery of effective surgical techniques, we still have been unable to classify simply connected smooth…

This work concludes a series of four papers on the foundational theory of orbifolds and stacks. We apply the abstract theory, developed in its predecessors, to orbifolds derived from manifolds. Specifically, we show how the very concrete…

We show how to construct absolutely exotic smooth structures on compact 4-manifolds with boundary, including contractible manifolds. In particular, we prove that any compact smooth 4-manifold W with boundary that admits a relatively exotic…

We establish inequalities that constrain the genera of smooth cobordisms between knots in 4-dimensional cobordisms. These "relative adjunction inequalities" improve the adjunction inequalities for closed surfaces which have been…

We further sharpen higher type adjunction inequalities of P. Ozsv\'ath and Z. Szab\'o on a 4-manifold $M$ with a nonzero Seiberg-Witten invariant for a Spin$^c$ structure $\frak{s}$, when an embedded surface $\Sigma\subset M$ satisfies…

This paper investigates the exotic phenomena exhibited by links of disconnected surfaces with boundary that are properly embedded in the 4-ball. Our main results provide two different constructions of exotic pairs of surface links that are…