Related papers: Some recent approaches in 4-dimensional surgery th…

The total surgery obstruction of a finite n-dimensional Poincare complex X is an element s(X) of a certain abelian group S_n (X) with the property that for n >= 5 we have s(X) = 0 if and only if X is homotopy equivalent to a closed…

Let $X$ be a connected compact 3-manifold with non-empty boundary. Consider the boundary $M$ of $X\times D^2$. $M$ is a 4-dimensional closed manifold and has the same fundamental group as $X$. Various examples of $X$ are known for which a…

Under certain homological hypotheses on a compact 4-manifold, we prove exactness of the topological surgery sequence at the stably smoothable normal invariants. The main examples are the class of finite connected sums of 4-manifolds with…

Surgery, as developed by Browder, Kervaire, Milnor, Novikov, Sullivan, Wall and others is a method for comparing homotopy types of topological spaces with diffeomorphism or homeomorphism types of manifolds of dimension >= 5. In this paper,…

We prove a version of Poincar\'e's polyhedron theorem whose requirements are as local as possible. New techniques such as the use of discrete groupoids of isometries are introduced. The theorem may have a wide range of applications and can…

Even though the disk embedding theorem is not available in dimension 4 for free fundamental groups, some surgery problems may be shown to have topological solutions. We prove that surgery problems may be solved if one considers closed…

The validity of Freedman's disk theorem is known to depend only on the fundamental group. It was conjectured that it fails for nonabelian free fundamental groups. If this were true then surgery theory would work in dimension four. Recently,…

Following Bryant, Ferry, Mio and Weinberger we construct generalized manifolds as limits of controlled sequences p_i: X_i --> X_{i-1} : i = 1,2,... of controlled Poincar\'e spaces. The basic ingredient is the epsilon-delta-surgery sequence…

We show that the homotopy type of a finite oriented Poincar\'{e} 4-complex is determined by its quadratic 2-type provided its fundamental group is finite and has a dihedral Sylow 2-subgroup. By combining with results of Hambleton-Kreck and…

We exhibit a homotopy theoretic proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Poincar\'e surgery in the simply connected case. We also deduce the Poincar\'e transversality exact sequence.

This paper presents an alternative approach to controlled surgery obstructions. The obstruction for a degree one normal map $(f,b): M^n \rightarrow X^n$ with control map $q: X^n \rightarrow B$ to complete controlled surgery is an element…

Topological 4-dimensional surgery is conjectured to fail, in general, for free fundamental groups. M. Freedman and P. Teichner have shown that surgery problems with an arbitrary fundamental group have a solution, provided they satisfy a…

This paper studies the homotopy and homeomorphism classifications of $4$-manifolds with boundary. Given $4$-manifolds $X_0$ and $X_1$ with fundamental group $\pi$, we consider the problem of extending a homotopy equivalence $h \colon…

Let $X$ be an $(n-2)$-connected $2n$-dimensional Poincar\'e complex with torsion-free homology, where $n\geq 4$. We prove that $X$ can be decomposed into a connected sum of two Poincar\'e complexes: one being $(n-1)$-connected, while the…

We prove that the canonical 4-dimensional surgery problems can be solved after passing to a double cover. This contrasts the long-standing conjecture about the validity of the topological surgery theorem for arbitrary fundamental groups…

A new topological invariant of closed connected orientable four-dimensional manifolds is proposed. The invariant, constructed via surgery on a special link, is a four-dimensional counterpart of the celebrated SU(2) three-manifold invariant…

We introduce a homology surgery problem in dimension 3 which has the property that the vanishing of its algebraic obstruction leads to a canonical class of \pi-algebraically-split links in 3-manifolds with fundamental group \pi . Using this…

Given a closed $n$-manifold, we consider the set of simple homotopy types of $n$-manifolds within its homotopy type, called its simple homotopy manifold set. We characterise it in terms of algebraic K-theory, the surgery obstruction map,…

We give a survey of geometric approaches to the topological 4-dimensional surgery and 5-dimensional s-cobordism conjectures, with a focus on the study of surfaces in 4-manifolds. The geometric lemma underlying these conjectures is a…

We develop the details of a surgery theory for contact manifolds of arbitrary dimension via convex structures, extending the 3-dimensional theory developed by Giroux. The theory is analogous to that of Weinstein manifolds in symplectic…