Related papers: Some open questions about symplectic 4-manifolds, …

We give two constructions of surfaces in simply-connected 4-manifolds with non simply-connected complements. One is an iteration of the twisted rim surgery introduced by the first author. We also construct, for any group G satisfying some…

Given a symplectic manifold, we ask in how many different ways can a torus act on it. Classification theorems in equivariant symplectic geometry can sometimes tell that two Hamiltonian torus actions are inequivalent, but often they do not…

We show that the image of the pure braid group under the monodromy action on the homology of a cyclic covering of degree d of the projective line is an arithmetic group provided the number of branch points is sufficiently large compared to…

We introduce and develop a language of semigroups over the braid groups for a study of braid monodromy factorizations (bmf's) of plane algebraic curves and other related objects. As an application we give a new proof of Orevkov's theorem on…

This is a summary of some of the basic facts about flat 2-orbifold groups, otherwise known as 2-dimensional crystallographic groups. We relate the geometric and topological presentations of these groups, and consider structures…

We associate to every positive braid a braid monodromy group, generalizing the geometric monodromy group of an isolated plane curve singularity. If the closure of the braid is a knot, we identify the corresponding group with a framed…

We compute the oriented cobordism group of fold maps of 4-manifolds into the space with all the possible restrictions (and also with no restriction) to the singular fibers. We also give geometric invariants which describe completely the…

The braid monodromy factorization of the branch curve of a surface of general type is known to be an invariant that completely determines the diffeomorphism type of the surface. Calculating this factorization is of high technical…

We adapt algorithms for resolving the singularities of complex algebraic varieties to prove that the natural map of homology theories from complex bordism to the bordism theory of complex derived orbifolds splits. In equivariant stable…

Let $X$ be an oriented 4-manifold which does not have simple SW-type, for example a blow-up of a rational or ruled surface. We show that any two cohomologous and deformation equivalent symplectic forms on $X$ are isotopic. This implies that…

Consider a dihedral cover $f: Y\to X$ with $X$ and $Y$ four-manifolds and $f$ branched along an oriented surface embedded in $X$ with isolated cone singularities. We prove that only a slice knot can arise as the unique singularity on an…

Almost toric manifolds form a class of singular Lagrangian fibered symplectic manifolds that is a natural generalization of toric manifolds. Notable examples include the K3 surface, the phase space of the spherical pendulum and rational…

This is a survey paper on the space of symplectic structures on closed 4-manifolds, for the Proceedings ICCM 2004

We study relative symplectic cobordisms between contact submanifolds, and in particular relative symplectic cobordisms to the empty set, that we call hats. While we make some observations in higher dimensions, we focus on the case of…

A study of certain symplectic $4$-orbifolds with vanishing canonical class is initiated. We show that for any such symplectic $4$-orbifold $X$, there is a canonically constructed symplectic $4$-orbifold $Y$, together with a cyclic orbifold…

This paper addresses several isotopy problems on $4$-manifolds. First, we classify the isotopy classes of embeddings of $\Sigma$ in $\Sigma\times S^2$ that are geometrically dual to $\{\mbox{pt}\}\times S^2$, where $\Sigma$ is a closed…

In this paper, the symplectic genus for any 2-dimensional class in a 4-manifold admitting a symplectic structure is introduced, and its relation with the minimal genus is studied. It is used to describe which classes in rational and…

Using the existence of certain symplectic submanifolds in symplectic 4-manifolds, we prove an estimate from above for the number of singular fibers with separating vanishing cycles in minimal Lefschetz fibrations over surfaces of positive…

We prove the long-standing Montesinos conjecture that any closed oriented PL 4-manifold M is a simple covering of S^4 branched over a locally flat surface (cf [J M Montesinos, 4-manifolds, 3-fold covering spaces and ribbons, Trans. Amer.…

Introducing the notion of stabilized fundamental group for the complement of a branch curve in $CP^2$, we define effectively computable invariants of symplectic 4-manifolds that generalize those previously introduced by Moishezon and…