This paper studies the rational homotopy groups of the group $\mathrm{Diff}(S^4)$ of self-diffeomorphisms of $S^4$ with the $C^\infty$-topology. We present a method to prove that there are many `exotic' non-trivial elements in $π_*\mathrm{Diff}(S^4)\otimes \mathbb{Q}$ parametrized by trivalent graphs. As a corollary of the main result, the 4-dimensional Smale conjecture is disproved. The proof utilizes Kontsevich's characteristic classes for smooth disk bundles and a version of clasper surgery for families. In fact, these are analogues of Chern--Simons perturbation theory in 3-dimension and clasper theory due to Goussarov and Habiro.
A study on the relation between the smooth structure of a symplectic homotopy K3 surface and its symplectic symmetries is initiated. A measurement of exoticness of a symplectic homotopy K3 surface is introduced, and the influence of an effective action of a K3 group via symplectic symmetries is investigated. It is shown that an effective action by various maximal symplectic K3 groups forces the corresponding homotopy K3 surface to be minimally exotic with respect to our measure. (However, the standard K3 is the only known example of such minimally exotic homotopy K3 surfaces.) The possible str…
Classical work of Lee, Schultz, and Stolz relates the smooth transformation groups of exotic spheres to the stable homotopy groups of spheres. In this note, we apply recent progress on the latter to produce smooth circle and cyclic group actions on certain exotic spheres.
In this addendum, we give a differential form interpretation of the proof of the main theorem of arXiv:1812.02448, which gives lower bounds of the dimensions of $π_k(B\mathrm{Diff}(D^4,\partial))\otimes\mathbb{Q}$ in terms of the dimensions of Kontsevich's graph homology, and explain why it can be extended to arbitrary even dimensions $d\geq 4$. We attempted to make the proof accessible to more readers. Thus we do not assume familiarity with configuration space integrals nor knowledge of finite type invariants. Part of this addendum might be joined to the original article when it will be re-su…
This paper extends widely the work in \cite{GT13}. Existence and non-existence results of isoparametric functions on exotic spheres and Eells-Kuiper projective planes are established. In particular, every homotopy $n$-sphere ($n>4$) carries an isoparametric function (with certain metric) with 2 points as the focal set, in strong contrast to the classification of cohomogeneity one actions on homotopy spheres \cite{St96} ( only exotic Kervaire spheres admit cohomogeneity one actions besides the standard spheres ). As an application, we improve a beautiful result of Bérard-Bergery \cite{BB77} ( s…
We establish the existence of a pair of exotic surfaces in a punctured $K3$ which remains exotic after one external stabilization and have diffeomorphic complements. A key ingredient in the proof is a vanishing theorem of the family Bauer--Furuta invariant for diffeomorphisms on a large family of spin 4-manifolds, which is proved using the tom Dieck splitting theorem in equivariant stable homotopy theory. In particular, we prove that the $S^{1}$-equivariant family Bauer--Furuta invariant of any orientation-preserving diffeomorphism on $S^{4}$ is trivial and that the $\mathrm{Pin}(2)$-equivaria…
In 2006 Masuda and Suh asked if two compact non-singular toric varieties having isomorphic cohomology rings are homeomorphic. In the first part of this paper we discuss this question for topological generalizations of toric varieties, so-called torus manifolds. For example we show that there are homotopy equivalent torus manifolds which are not homeomorphic. Moreover, we characterize those groups which appear as the fundamental groups of locally standard torus manifolds. In the second part we give a classification of quasitoric manifolds and certain six-dimensional torus manifolds up to equiva…
We study finite group actions on smooth manifolds of the form $M\#Σ$, where $Σ$ is an exotic $n$-sphere and $M$ is a closed aspherical space form. We give a classification result for free actions of finite groups on $M\#Σ$ when $M$ is 7-dimensional. We show that if $\mathbb Z/p\mathbb Z$ acts freely on $T^n\#Σ$, then $Σ$ is divisible by $p$ in the group of homotopy spheres. When $M$ is hyperbolic, we give examples $M\#Σ$ that admit no nontrivial smooth action of a finite group, even though Isom($M$) is arbitrarily large. Our proofs combine geometric and topological rigidity results with smooth…
In this paper, we are concerned with interactions between isoparametric theory and differential topology. Two foliations are called equivalent if there exists a diffeomorphism between the foliated manifolds mapping leaves to leaves. Using differential topology, we obtain several results towards the classification problem of isoparametric foliations up to equivalence. In particular, we show that each homotopy $n$-sphere has the "same" isoparametric foliations as the standard sphere $S^n$ has except for $n=4$, reducing the classification problem on homotopy spheres to that on the standard sphere…
We prove that for many degrees in a stable range the homotopy groups of the moduli space of metrics of positive scalar curvature on S^n and on other manifolds are non-trivial. This is achieved by further developing and then applying a family version of the surgery construction of Gromov-Lawson to an exotic smooth families of spheres due to Hatcher. As described, this works for all manifolds of suitable dimension and for the quotient of the space of metrics of positive scalar curvature by the (free) action of the subgroup of diffeomorphisms which fix a point and its tangent space. We also const…
We show that, for certain families $ϕ_{\mathbf{s}}$ of diffeomorphisms of high-dimensional spheres, the commutator of the Dehn twist along the zero-section of $T^*S^n$ with the family of pullbacks $ϕ^*_{\mathbf{s}}$ gives a noncontractible family of compactly-supported symplectomorphisms. In particular, we find examples: where the Dehn twist along a parametrised Lagrangian sphere depends up to Hamiltonian isotopy on its parametrisation; where the symplectomorphism group is not simply-connected, and where the symplectomorphism group does not have the homotopy-type of a finite CW-complex. We sho…
We establish an interesting connection between Morin singularities and stable homotopy groups of spheres. We apply this connection to computations of cobordism groups of certain singular maps. The differentials of the spectral sequence computing these cobordism groups are given by the composition multiplication in the stable homotopy groups of spheres.
The aim of this paper is to show the rigidity of homologically trivial actions of prime order on K3 surfaces. To be precise, we show that homotopy K3 surfaces do not admit a periodic diffeomorphism of odd prime order 3 acting trivially on cohomology. Moreover, we give an obstruction in terms of the rationality and sign of the spin numbers to the existence of a periodic diffeomorphism of odd prime order acting trivially on cohomology of homotopy K3 surfaces.
We classify, up to diffeomorphism, all closed smooth manifolds homeomorphic to the complex projective $n$-space $\mathbb{C}\textbf{P}^n$, where $n=3$ and $4$. Let $M^{2n}$ be a closed smooth $2n$-manifold homotopy equivalent to $\mathbb{C}\textbf{P}^n$. We show that, up to diffeomorphism, $M^{6}$ has a unique differentiable structure and $M^{8}$ has at most two distinct differentiable structures. We also show that, up to concordance, there exist at least two distinct differentiable structures on a finite sheeted cover $N^{2n}$ of $\mathbb{C}\textbf{P}^n$ for $n=4, 7$ or $8$ and six distinct di…
