Related papers: Some open questions about symplectic 4-manifolds, …
We give an overview of various recent results concerning the topology of symplectic 4-manifolds and singular plane curves, using branched covers and isotopy problems as a unifying theme. While this paper does not contain any new results, we…
In this article we consider a version of the geography question for simply-connected symplectic 4-manifolds that takes into account the divisibility of the canonical class as an additional parameter. We also find new examples of 4-manifolds…
These notes are adapted from two talks given at the 2004 Clay Institute Summer School on Floer homology, gauge theory, and low dimensional topology at the Alfred Renyi Institute. We will quickly review what we do and do not know about the…
A survey of finite group actions on symplectic 4-manifolds is given with a special emphasis on results and questions concerning smooth or symplectic classification of group actions, group actions and exotic smooth structures, and…
The embeddings of complex plane projective curves in the plane are a cornerstone of the topological study of algebraic varieties. In this work, we deal with the local and global aspects of these embeddings, with a special attention to its…
Every compact symplectic 4-manifold can be realized as a branched cover of the complex projective plane branched along a symplectic curve with cusp and node singularities; the covering map is induced by a triple of sections of a "very…
A well-known and difficult problem in computational number theory and algebraic geometry is to write down equations for branched covers of algebraic curves with specified monodromy type. In this article, we present a technique for computing…
We define a suitably tame class of singular symplectic curves in 4-manifolds, namely those whose singularities are modeled on complex curve singularities. We study the corresponding symplectic isotopy problem, with a focus on rational…
We provide new branched covering representations for bounded and/or non-compact 4-manifolds, which extend the known ones for closed 4-manifolds. Assuming $M$ to be a connected oriented PL 4-manifold, our main results are the following: (1)…
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…
We study the question of how many embedded symplectic or Lagrangian tori can represent the same homology class in a simply connected symplectic 4-manifold.
This is a glossary of notions and methods related with the topological theory of collections of affine planes, including braid groups, configuration spaces, order complexes, stratified Morse theory, simplicial resolutions, complexes of…
We explain how a version of Floer homology can be used as an invariant of symplectic manifolds with $b_1>0$. As a concrete example, we look at four-manifolds produced from braids by a surgery construction. The outcome shows that the…
After reviewing recent results on symplectic Lefschetz pencils and symplectic branched covers of CP^2, we describe a new construction of maps from symplectic manifolds of any dimension to CP^2 and the associated monodromy invariants. We…
We study symplectic surfaces in ruled symplectic 4-manifolds which are disjoint from a given symplectic section. As a consequence we see that, in any symplectic 4-manifold, two homologous symplectic surfaces which are sufficiently C^0 close…
The main purpose of this paper is to summarize the basic ingredients, illustrated with examples, of a pseudoholomorphic curve theory for symplectic 4-orbifolds. These are extensions of relevant work of Gromov, McDuff and Taubes on…
We compute the topological mapping class group of every compact, simply connected, topological 4-manifold. This was previously only known in the closed case. If the 4-manifold is smooth, we deduce an analogous description of the stable…
We initiate a study of positive multisections of Lefschetz fibrations via positive factorizations in framed mapping class groups of surfaces. Using our methods, one can effectively capture various interesting symplectic surfaces in…
We establish a braid of interlocking exact sequences containing the group of homotopy self-equivalences of a smooth or topological 4-manifold. The braid is computed for manifolds whose fundamental group is finite of odd order.
In this manuscript we prove that if two cuspidal plane curves have equivalent braid monodromy factorizations, then they are smoothly isotopic in the plane. As a consequence of this and the Chisini conjecture, we obtain that if two…