Related papers: Stabilisation, bordism and embedded spheres in 4--…

These notes, which are based on three lectures delivered at the summer school "Topological 4-manifolds" at CRM in 2025, discuss classifications of locally flat spheres in closed, simply-connected $4$-manifolds, with a focus on the case…

We consider diffeomorphisms $f$ with heteroclinic cycles associated to saddles $P$ and $Q$ of different indices. We say that a cycle of this type can be stabilized if there are diffeomorphisms close to $f$ with a robust cycle associated to…

A fundamental theorem of Laman characterises when a bar-joint framework realised generically in the Euclidean plane admits a non-trivial continuous deformation of its vertices. This has recently been extended in two ways. Firstly to…

Using spinning we analyze in a geometric way Haefliger's smoothly knotted (4k-1)-spheres in the 6k-sphere. Consider the 2-torus standardly embedded in the 3-sphere, which is further standardly embedded in the 6-sphere. At each point of the…

For every $k \geq 2$ we construct infinitely many $4k$-dimensional manifolds that are all stably diffeomorphic but pairwise not homotopy equivalent. Each of these manifolds has hyperbolic intersection form and is stably parallelisable. In…

Let $N$ and $P$ be smooth closed manifolds of dimensions $n$ and $p$ respectively. Given a Thom-Boardman symbol $I$, a smooth map $f:N\to P$ is called an $\Omega^{I}$-regular map if and only if the Thom-Boardman symbol of each singular…

As discussed in the paper, in a matter-filled spacetime, perhaps with positive cosmological constant, a stable marginally outer trapped 2-sphere must satisfy a certain area inquality. Namely, its area must be bounded above by $4\pi/c$,…

For every $k \geq 2$ and $n \geq 2$ we construct $n$ pairwise homotopically inequivalent simply-connected, closed $4k$-dimensional manifolds, all of which are stably diffeomorphic to one another. Each of these manifolds has hyperbolic…

We construct a ring homomorphism comparing the tautological ring, fixing a point, of a closed smooth manifold with that of its stabilisation by $S^{2a} \times S^{2b}$.

We examine several classes of manifolds which have the same cohomology ring as an Eschenburg space (a family of biquotients which is a main source of manifolds with positive curvature). One family are the 3-sphere bundles over CP^2. Another…

To define enumerative invariants in geometry, one often needs orientations on moduli spaces of geometric objects. This monograph develops a new bordism-theoretic point of view on orientations of moduli spaces. Let $X$ be a manifold with…

We study cobordisms of nested manifolds, which are manifolds together with embedded submanifolds, which can themselves have embedded submanifolds, etc. We identify a nested analog of the Pontryagin-Thom construction. Moreover, when the…

We show a rigidity theorem for the Seiberg-Witten invariants mod 2 for families of spin 4-manifolds. A mechanism of this rigidity theorem also gives a family version of 10/8-type inequality. As an application, we prove the existence of…

Given a graded $E_1$-module over an $E_2$-algebra in spaces, we construct an augmented semi-simplicial space up to higher coherent homotopy over it, called its canonical resolution, whose graded connectivity yields homological stability for…

A wide class of noncommutative spaces, including 4-spheres based on all the quantum 2-spheres and suspensions of matrix quantum groups is described. For each such space a noncommutative vector bundle is constructed. This generalises and…

We derive the $s$-invariants of certain simply connected $7$-manifolds whose second homology groups are isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}^{2}$. We apply the $s$-invariants to give a partial classification of simply connected total spaces of circle…

Motivated by the description of $\mathcal{N}=1$ M-theory compactifications to four-dimensions given by Exceptional Generalized Geometry, we propose a way to geometrize the M-theory fluxes by appropriately relating the compactification space…

We construct a number of topologically trivial but smoothly non-trivial families of embeddings of 3-manifolds in 4-manifolds. These include embeddings of homology spheres in $S^4$ that are not isotopic but have diffeomorphic complements,…

A bubble of nothing is a spacetime instability where a compact dimension collapses. After nucleation, it expands at the speed of light, leaving "nothing" behind. We argue that the topological and dynamical mechanisms which could protect a…

This paper is dedicated to the study of deformations of coassociative 4-folds in a G_2 manifold which have conical singularities. We stratify the types of deformations allowed into three problems. The main result for each problem states…