Related papers: Construction of Exotic Smooth Structures

We develop the Gompf fiber connected sum operation for symplectic orbifolds. We use it to construct a symplectic 4-orbifold with $b_1=0$ and containing symplectic surfaces of genus 1 and 2 that are disjoint and span the rational homology.…

We present the various constructions of new symplectic $4$-manifolds with non-negative signatures using the complex surfaces on the BMY line $c_1^2 = 9\chi_h$, the Cartwright-Steger surfaces, the quotients of Hirzebruch's certain…

We prove that every 4-dimensional oriented handlebody without 3- and 4-handles can be modified to admit infinitely many exotic smooth structures, and moreover prove that their genus functions are pairwise equivalent. We furthermore show…

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,…

Let $(M, \omega)$ be a connected, compact 6-dimensional symplectic manifold equipped with a semi-free Hamiltonian $S^1$ action such that the fixed point set consists of isolated points or surfaces. Assume dim $H^2(M)<3$, in \cite{L}, we…

We prove that for every natural number k there are simply connected topological four-manifolds which have at leat k distinct smooth structures supporting Einstein metrics, and also have infinitely many distinct smooth structures not…

We show that every positive definite closed 4-manifold with $b_2^+>1$ and without 1-handles has a vanishing stable cohomotopy Seiberg-Witten invariant, and thus admits no symplectic structure. We also show that every closed oriented…

We construct infinite families of topologically isotopic but smoothly distinct knotted spheres in many simply connected 4-manifolds that become smoothly isotopic after stabilizing by connected summing with $S^2 \times S^2$, and as a…

We introduce a simple cut-and-paste mechanism to construct both orientable and nonorientable four-manifolds from a given initial one. This mechanism alters the fundamental group while preserving other essential topological invariants. It…

In $1961$, Mazur constructed a contractible, compact, smooth $4$-manifold with boundary which is not homeomorphic to the standard $4$-ball, using a $0$-handle, a $1$-handle and a $2$-handle. In this paper, for any integer $n\geq2,$ we…

We show that any finitely presented group with an index two subgroup is realized as the fundamental group of a closed smooth non-orientable four-manifold that admits an exotic smooth structure, which is obtained by performing a Gluck twist.…

In the paper \cite{wall_1}, C.T.C. Wall proved that two smooth closed simply connected 4-manifolds which are homeomorphic are in fact stably diffeomorphic. We prove a similar result which states that two smooth closed 4-manifolds satisfying…

We present an approach to Gromov-Witten invariants that works on arbitrary (closed) symplectic manifolds. We avoid genericity arguments and take into account singular curves in the very formulation. The method is by first endowing mapping…

By studying the example of smooth structures on CP^2#3(-CP^2) we illustrate how surgery on a single embedded nullhomologous torus can be utilized to change the symplectic structure, the Seiberg-Witten invariant, and hence the smooth…

The rational homology balls $B_n$ appeared in Fintushel and Stern's rational blow-down construction [FS] and were subsequently used (e.g. Fintushel-Stern[FS4], Park[Pa2]) to construct exotic smooth manifolds with small Euler numbers. We…

In this paper, we study stable equivalence of exotically knotted surfaces in 4-manifolds, surfaces that are topologically isotopic but not smoothly isotopic. We prove that any pair of embedded surfaces in the same homology class become…

The main result of this paper is a formula for calculating the Seiberg-Witten invariants of 4-manifolds with fixed-point free circle actions. This is done by showing under suitable conditions the existence of a diffeomorphism between the…

This is the first in a series of papers where we will derive invariants of three-manifolds and framed knots in them from the geometry of a manifold pseudotriangulation put in some way in a four-dimensional Euclidean space. Thus, the…

A non-formal simply connected compact symplectic manifold of dimension 8 is constructed.

Finite-order invariants of knots in arbitrary 3-manifolds (including non-orientable ones) are constructed and studied by methods of the topology of discriminant sets. Obstructions to the integrability of admissible weight systems to…