Related papers: The symplectic Thom conjecture

Motivated by various possible generalizations of Taubes's \(SW=Gr\) theorem [T] to Floer-theoretic setting, we prove certain variants of Taubes's convergence theorem in \cite{T} (the first part of his proof of \(SW=Gr\)). In place of the…

We give a new characterization of symplectic surfaces in CP^2 via bridge trisections. Specifically, a minimal genus surface in CP^2 is smoothly isotopic to a symplectic surface if and only if it is smoothly isotopic to a surface in…

We calculate the Seiberg-Witten invariants of branched covers of prime degree, where the branch locus consists of embedded spheres. Aside from the formula itself, our calculations give rise to some new constraints on configurations of…

We derive an obstruction to representing a homology class of a symplectic 4-manifold by an embedded, possibly disconnected, symplectic surface.

This is the sequel to the author's previous paper which gives an extension of Taubes' "SW=Gr" theorem to non-symplectic 4-manifolds. The main result of this paper asserts the following. Whenever the Seiberg-Witten invariants are defined…

On a compact oriented four-manifold with an orientation preserving involution c, we count solutions of Seiberg-Witten equations, which are moreover symmetrical in relation to c, to construct "real" Seiberg-Witten invariants. Using Taubes'…

We prove that, under a simple condition on the cohomology ring, every closed 4-manifold has mod 2 Seiberg-Witten simple type. This result shows that there exists a large class of topological 4-manifolds such that all smooth structures have…

We study the invariants of surfaces in 4-manifolds extracted from the Seiberg-Witten and the Ozsvath-Szabo invariants of their fiber sums with auxiliary Lefschetz fibrations. Such invariants involve relative Spin_c structures and can be…

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…

We define higher genus Gromov-Witten invariants and establish a mathematical theory of sigma model coupled with gravity over any semi-positive symplectic manifolds. As applications, we verify the stablizing conjecture of symplectic…

We continue our program initiated in [arXiv:0912.4261] to consider supersymmetric surface operators in a topologically-twisted N=2 pure SU(2) gauge theory, and apply them to the study of four-manifolds and related invariants. Elegant…

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 thesis we study the Seiberg-Witten theory of an oriented homology 3-sphere. The goal is to extract topological invariants - the Seiberg-Witten invariants - by counting the solutions to the Seiberg-Witten equations on the manifold.…

A Real structure on a $4$-manifold $X$ is an orientation preserving smooth involution $\sigma$. We say that an embedded surface $\Sigma \subset X$ is Real if $\sigma$ maps $\Sigma$ to itself orientation reversingly. We prove that a…

Consider a smooth $4$-manifold $X$ and a diffeomorphism $f : X \to X$. We give an obstruction in the form of an adjunction inequality for an embedded surface in $X$ to be isotopic to its image under $f$. It follows that the minimal genus of…

These are notes of lectures given at the NATO Summer School, Montreal 1995. Taubes's recent spectacular work setting up a correspondence between $J$-holomorphic curves in symplectic 4-manifolds and solutions of the Seiberg-Witten equations…

We consider a connected negative definite plumbing graph, and we assume that the associated plumbed 3-manifold is a rational homology sphere. We provide two new combinatorial formulae for the Seiberg-Witten invariant of this manifold. The…

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the following problem: For a fixed 2-dimensional homology class K in a simply connected symplectic 4-manifold, up to smooth isotopy, how many connected smoothly embedded symplectic submanifolds…

According to Taubes, the Gromov invariants of a symplectic four-manifold X with b_+ > 1 satisfy the duality Gr(A) = +/- Gr(K-A), where K is Poincare dual to the canonical class. Extending joint work with Simon Donaldson in math.SG/0012067,…

We consider several differential-topological invariants of compact 4-manifolds which directly arise from Riemannian variational problems. Using recent results of Bauer and Furuta, we compute these invariants in many cases that were…