v2: 46 pages: corrected the definition of [v(\bar ν)] in section 2, altered the historical Remark 1.2, added one reference, cut inessential details and corrected some typos
The monoids l_{2q+1}(Z[π]) detect s-cobordisms amongst certain bordisms between stably diffeomorphic 2q-dimensional manifolds and generalise the Wall simple surgery obstruction groups, L_{2q+1}^s(Z[π]) \subset l_{2q+1}(Z[π]). In this paper we give exact sequences which completely describe l_{2q+1}(Z[π]) as a set and which we use to compute its Grothendieck group. As a consequence we deduce cancellation results for stably diffeomorphic manifolds with polycyclic-by-finite fundamental group.
Two 4-manifolds are stably diffeomorphic if they become diffeomorphic after connected sum with S^2 x S^2's. This paper shows that two closed, orientable, homotopy equivalent, smooth 4-manifolds are stably diffeomorphic, provided a certain map from the second homology of the fundamental group with coefficients in Z/2 to the L-theory of the group is injective. This injectivity is implied by the Borel/Novikov conjecture for torsion-free groups, which is known for many groups. There are also results concerning the homotopy invariance of the Kirby-Siebenmann invariant. The method of proof is to use…
We give a method for obtaining infinitely many framed knots which represent a diffeomorphic 4-manifold. We also study a relationship between the $n$-shake genus and the 4-ball genus of a knot. Furthermore we give a construction of homotopy 4-spheres from a slice knot with unknotting number one.
In this note we prove that equivariantly homeomorphic quasitoric manifolds are diffeomorphic. As a consequence we show that up to finite ambiguity the diffeomorphism type of certain quasitoric manifolds $M$ is determined by their cohomology rings and first Pontrjagin classes.
One can define what it means for a compact manifold with corners to be a "contractible manifold with contractible faces." Two combinatorially equivalent, contractible manifolds with contractible faces are diffeomorphic if and only if their 4-dimensional faces are diffeomorphic. It follows that two simple convex polytopes are combinatorially equivalent if and only if they are diffeomorphic as manifolds with corners. On the other hand, by a result of Akbulut, for each n > 3, there are smooth, contractible n-manifolds with contractible faces which are combinatorially equivalent but not diffeomorp…
We solve a strong version of Problem 3.6 (D) in Kirby's list, that is, we show that for any integer $n$, there exist infinitely many mutually distinct knots such that $2$-handle additions along them with framing $n$ yield the same $4$-manifold.
In this paper, we will introduce a cut and paste move, called a geometrically null log transform, and prove that any two manifolds related by a sequence of these moves become diffeomorphic afte r one stabilization. To motivate the cut and paste move, we will use the symplec tic fiber sum, and a construction of Fintushel and Stern to construct several large families of 4-manifolds. We will then proceed to prove that the members of any one of these families become diffeomorphic after one stabilization. Finally, we will compute the Seiberg-Witten invariants of each member of each of the families.
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 certain properties are stably diffeomorphic if and only if their signatures agree. The manifolds in question are obtained by surgery on loops. The methods we use are modified surgery of Kreck \cite{kreck} and Kirby calculus.
We present new computational methods for proving diffeomorphy of triangulated 4-manifolds, including algorithms and topological software that can for the first time effectively handle the complexities that arise in dimension four and be used for large scale experiments.
We study closed, oriented 4-manifolds whose fundamental group is that of a closed, oriented, aspherical 3-manifold. We show that two such 4-manifolds are stably diffeomorphic if and only if they have the same w_2-type and their equivariant intersection forms are stably isometric. We also find explicit algebraic invariants that determine the stable classification for spin manifolds in this class.
In this paper, we show that a smooth 4-manifold diffeomorphic to a complex hypersurface in $\mathbb{CP}^3 $ of degree $d\geq 5$ can be decomposed as the union of $d(d-4)^2$ copies of 4-dimensional pair-of-pants and certain subsets of K3 surfaces.
In terms of Turaev's shadows, we provide a sufficient condition for a compact, smooth, acyclic 4-manifold with boundary the 3-sphere to be diffeomorphic to the standard 4-ball. As a consequence, we prove that if a compact, smooth, acyclic 4-manifold with boundary the 3-sphere has shadow-complexity at most 2, then it is diffeomorphic to the standard 4-ball.
Given a simply-connected closed 4-manifold $X$ and a smoothly embedded oriented surface $Σ$, various constructions based on Fintushel-Stern knot surgery have produced new surfaces in $X$ that are pairwise homeomorphic to $Σ$, but not diffeomorphic. We prove that for all known examples of surface knots constructed from knot surgery operations that preserve the fundamental group of the complement of surface knots, they become pairwise diffeomorphic after stabilizing by connected summing with one $S^2\tilde{\times}S^2$. When $X$ is spin, we show in addition that any surfaces obtained by a knot su…
We give complete geometric invariants of cobordisms of fold maps with oriented singular set and cobordisms of even codimensional fold maps. These invariants are given in terms of cobordisms of stably framed manifolds and cobordisms of immersions with prescribed normal bundles defined by the author in his earlier works.
Two smooth manifolds M and N are called R-diffeomorphic if their product with the real line are diffeomorphic. We consider the following simplification problem: does R-diffeomorphism imply diffeomorphism or homeomorphism? For compact manifolds, analysis of this problem relies on some of the main achievements of the theory of manifolds, in particular the h- and s-cobordism theorems in high dimensions and the spectacular more recent classification results in dimensions 3 and 4. This paper presents what is currently known about the subject as well as some new results about classifications of R-di…
For every $k \geq 2$ and $n \geq 2$ we construct $n$ pairwise homotopically inequivalent simply-connected, closed $4k$-dimensional manifolds, all of which are stably diffeomorphic to one another. Each of these manifolds has hyperbolic intersection form and is stably parallelisable. In dimension $4$, we exhibit an analogous phenomenon for spin$^{c}$ structures on $S^2 \times S^2$. For $m\geq 1$, we also provide similar $(4m{-}1)$-connected $8m$-dimensional examples, where the number of homotopy types in a stable diffeomorphism class is related to the order of the image of the stable $J$-homomor…
Is a given map between compact topological manifolds homotopic to the projection map of a fiber bundle? In this paper obstructions to this question are introduced with values in higher algebraic K-theory. Their vanishing implies that the given map fibers stably. The methods also provide results for the corresponding uniqueness question; moreover they apply to the fibering of Hilbert cube manifolds, generalizing results by Chapman-Ferry.
We show that two closed, connected $4$-manifolds with finite fundamental groups are $\mathbb{CP}^2$-stably homeomorphic if and only if their quadratic $2$-types are stably isomorphic and their Kirby-Siebenmann invariant agrees.
In a small simply-connected closed 4-manifold, we construct infinitely many pairs of exotic codimension-$1$ submanifolds with diffeomorphic complements that remain exotic after any number of stabilizations by $ S^2 \times S^2$. We also give new constructions of exotic embeddings of 3-spheres in 4-manifolds with diffeomorphic complements.
Let T(γ) be the total space of the canonical line bundle γover CP^1 and r an integer which is greater than one and coprime to six. We prove that L_r^3\times T(γ) admits an infinite sequence of metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature with pairwise non-homeomorphic souls, where L_r^3 is the standard 3-dimensional lens space with fundamental group isomorphic to Z/r. We classify the total spaces of S^1-fibre bundles over S^2\times S^2 with fundamental group isomorphic to Z/r up to diffeomorphism and use these results to give examples of manifolds N which admit two complete metrics of nonnegativ…
A strategy for constructing an embedded sphere in a 4-manifold realizing a given homology class which has been successfully applied in the past is to represent the class as a first step stably by an embedded sphere, i.e. after adding products of 2-spheres, and to move that sphere back into the original manifold. In this paper, we study under what conditions the first step of this approach can be carried out if the 4-manifold at hand is not simply connected. One of our main results is that there are - apart from the well known Arf invariant - additional bordism theoretical obstructions to stabl…
This is primarily an exposition, combining work of several authors (Curtis, Hsiang, Freedman, Stong, Matveyev, and Bizaca), of the proof that a smooth 5-dimensional h-cobordism between simply connected 4-manifolds is a product off of a contractible piece which itself is diffeomorphic to the 5-ball.
We prove a homological stability theorem for the moduli spaces of manifolds diffeomorphic to $\#^{g}(S^{n+1}\times S^{n})$, provided $n \geq 4$. This is an odd dimensional analogue of a recent homological stability result of S. Galatius and O. Randal Williams for the moduli space of manifolds diffeomorphic to $\#^{g}(S^{n}\times S^{n})$ for $n \geq 3$.
We exhibit the first examples of closed 7-dimensional Riemannian manifolds with holonomy G_2 that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic. These are also the first examples of closed Ricci-flat manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic. The examples are generated by applying the twisted connected sum construction to Fano 3-folds of Picard rank 1 and 2. The smooth structures are distinguished by the generalised Eells-Kuiper invariant introduced by the authors in arXiv:1406.2226.
Motivated by a question of Hirzebruch on the possible topological types of cusp cross-sections of Hilbert modular varieties, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a manifold M to be diffeomorphic to a cusp cross-section of a Hilbert modular variety. Specialized to Hilbert modular surfaces, this proves that every Sol 3-manifold is diffeomorphic to a cusp cross-section of a (generalized) Hilbert modular surface. We also deduce an obstruction to geometric bounding in this setting. Consequently, there exist Sol 3-manifolds that cannot arise as a cusp cross-section of a 1-cusped nonsingu…
We show that a complete Riemannian manifold of dimension $n$ with $\Ric\geq n{-}1$ and its $n$-st eigenvalue close to $n$ is both Gromov-Hausdorff close and diffeomorphic to the standard sphere. This extends, in an optimal way, a result of P. Petersen. We also show that a manifold with $\Ric\geq n{-}1$ and volume close to $\frac{\Vol\sn}{#π_1(M)}$ is both Gromov-Hausdorff close and diffeomorphic to the space form $\frac{\sn}{π_1(M)}$. This extends results of T. Colding and T. Yamaguchi.
We study cohomological obstructions to extending group actions on the boundary $\partial M$ of a $3$-manifold to a $C^0$-action on $M$ when $\partial M$ is diffeomorphic to a torus or a sphere. In particular, we show that for a $3$-manifold $M$ with torus boundary which is not diffeomorphic to a solid torus, the torus action on the boundary does not extend to a $C^0$-action on $M$.
We give necessary and sufficient conditions for a closed smooth 6-manifold N to be diffeomorphic to a product of a surface F and a simply connected 4-manifold M in terms of basic invariants like the fundamental group and cohomological data. Any isometry of the intersection form of M is realized by a self-diffeomorphism of M x F.
We construct smooth 4-manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the "cusp" and the "fishtail", which are certain thickened singular 2-spheres.
Suppose $X$ and $Y$ are compact connected topological 4-manifolds with fundamental group $π$. For any $r \geqslant 0$, $Y$ is $r$-stably homeomorphic to $X$ if $Y \# r(S^2 \times S^2)$ is homeomorphic to $X \# r(S^2\times S^2)$. How close is stable homeomorphism to homeomorphism? When the common fundamental group $π$ is virtually abelian, we show that large $r$ can be diminished to $n+2$, where $π$ has a finite-index subgroup that is free-abelian of rank $n$. In particular, if $π$ is finite then $n=0$, hence $X$ and $Y$ are $2$-stably homeomorphic, which is one $S^2 \times S^2$ summand in exce…
We define the class of high dimensional graph manifolds. These are compact smooth manifolds supporting a decomposition into finitely many pieces, each of which is diffeomorphic to the product of a torus with a finite volume hyperbolic manifold with toric cusps. The various pieces are attached together via affine maps of the boundary tori. We require all the hyperbolic factors in the pieces to have dimension at least 3. Our main goal is to study this class of graph manifolds from the viewpoint of rigidity theory. We show that, in high dimensions, the Borel conjecture holds for our graph manifol…
We prove that any symplectic Fano $6$-manifold $M$ with a Hamiltonian $S^1$-action is simply connected and satisfies $c_1 c_2(M)=24$. This is done by showing that the fixed submanifold $M_{\min}\subseteq M$ on which the Hamiltonian attains its minimum is diffeomorphic to either a del Pezzo surface, a $2$-sphere or a point. In the case when $\dim(M_{\min})=4$, we use the fact that symplectic Fano $4$-manifolds are symplectomorphic to del Pezzo surfaces. The case when $\dim(M_{\min})=2$ involves a study of $6$-dimensional Hamiltonian $S^1$-manifolds with $M_{\min}$ diffeomorphic to a surface of …
