Related papers: Branched shadows and complex structures of 4-manif…
We define a subset of an almost complex manifold (M,J) to be a holomorphic shadow if it is the image of a J-holomorphic map from a compact complex manifold. Notice that a J-holomorphic curve is a holomorphic shadow, and so is a complex…
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…
Branched covers are applied frequently in topology - most prominently in the construction of closed oriented PL d-manifolds. In particular, strong bounds for the number of sheets and the topology of the branching set are known for dimension…
We develop a theory of link projections to trivalent spines of 3-manifolds. We prove a Reidemeister Theorem providing a set of combinatorial moves sufficient to relate the projections of isotopic links. We also show that any link admits a…
Classes of branched surfaces extend the classes of surfaces or 2-dimensional manifolds satisfying suitable properties and defined in various manners. Reeb spaces of smooth maps of suitable classes into surfaces whose codimensions are…
We prove that any closed simply-connected smooth 4-manifold is 16-fold branched covered by a product of an orientable surface with the 2-torus, where the construction is natural with respect to spin structures. In particular this solves…
A canonical branched covering over each sufficiently good simplicial complex is constructed. Its structure depends on the combinatorial type of the complex. In this way, each closed orientable 3-manifold arises as a branched covering over…
We show that every closed connected non-orientable PL $4$-manifold $X$ is a simple branched covering of $\RP^4$. We also show that $X$ is a simple branched covering of the twisted $S^3$-bundle $S^1 \simtimes S^3$ if and only if the first…
We extend Matveev's complexity of 3-manifolds to PL compact manifolds of arbitrary dimension, and we study its properties. The complexity of a manifold is the minimum number of vertices in a simple spine. We study how this quantity changes…
Work of numerous authors has shown that any smooth, orientable, closed 4-manifold may be described as a loop of Morse functions on a surface, a loop in the cut complex, a loop in the pants complex, or as a multisection. In this paper, we…
Cieliebak, Mundet i Riera and Salamon recently formulated a definition of branched submanifold of Euclidean space in connection with their discussion of multivalued sections and the Euler class. This note proposes an intrinsic definition of…
The special shadow-complexity is an invariant of closed $4$-manifolds defined by Costantino using Turaev's shadows. We show that for any positive integer $k$, the special shadow-complexity of the connected sum of $k$ copies of $S^1\times…
A shadow of a geometric object $A$ in a given direction $v$ is the orthogonal projection of $A$ on the hyperplane orthogonal to $v$. We show that any topological embedding of a circle into Euclidean $d$-space can have at most two shadows…
We introduce the concept of pseudo-trisections of smooth oriented compact 4-manifolds with boundary. The main feature of pseudo-trisections is that they have lower complexity than relative trisections for given 4-manifolds. We prove…
A brane in a symplectic manifold is a coisotropic submanifold $Y$ endowed with a compatible closed 2-form $F$, which together induce a transverse complex structure. For a specific class of branes we give an explicit description of branes…
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…
We describe a collection of constructions which illustrate a panoply of ``exotic'' smooth 4-manifolds.
Shapes of four dimensional spaces can be studied effectively via maps to standard surfaces. We explain, and illustrate by quintessential examples, how to simplify such generic maps on 4-manifolds topologically, in order to derive simple…
This survey aims to provide a guide to the literature on topological 4-manifolds. Foundational theorems on 4-manifolds are stated, especially in the topological category. Precise references are given, with indications of the strategies…
This is a short, elementary survey article about taut submanifolds. In order to simplify the exposition, we restrict to the case of compact smooth submanifolds of Euclidean or spherical spaces. Some new, partial results concerning taut…