The geography problem is usually stated for simply connected symplectic 4-manifolds. When the first cohomology is nontrivial, however, one can restate the problem taking into account how close the symplectic manifold is to satisfying the conclusion of the Hard Lefschetz Theorem, which is measured by a nonnegative integer called the degeneracy. In this paper we include the degeneracy as an extra parameter in the geography problem and show how to fill out the geography of symplectic 4-manifolds with Kodaira dimension 1 for all admissible triples.
We introduce the Kodaira dimension of contact 3-manifolds and establish some basic properties. In particular, contact 3-manifolds with distinct Kodaria dimensions behave differently when it comes to the geography of various kinds of fillings. On the other hand, we also prove that, given any contact 3-manifold, there is a lower bound of $2χ+3σ$ for all its minimal symplectic fillings. This is motivated by the bound of Stipsicz for Stein fillings. Finally, we discuss various aspects of exact self cobordisms of fillable 3-manifolds.
In this paper, results of J. Park and of B.D Park and Szabo on simply connected symplectic 4-manifolds are re-proven and extended to non-simply connected manifolds using Luttinger surgeries.
In this article we consider a version of the geography question for simply-connected symplectic 4-manifolds that takes into account the divisibility of the canonical class as an additional parameter. We also find new examples of 4-manifolds admitting several symplectic structures, inequivalent under deformation and self-diffeomorphisms of the manifold.
Modulo trivial exceptions, we show that smoothly nontrivial symplectic sums of symplectic 4-manifolds along surfaces of positive genus are never rational or ruled, and we enumerate each case in which they have Kodaira dimension zero (i.e., are blowups of symplectic 4-manifolds with torsion canonical class). In particular, a symplectic four-manifold of Kodaira dimension zero arises by such a surgery only if it is diffeomorphic to a blowup either of the K3 surface, the Enriques surface, or a member of a particular family of T^2-bundles over T^2 each having b_1=2.
We prove that for any contact 3-manifold supported by a spinal open book decomposition with planar pages, there is a universal bound on the Euler characteristic and signature of its minimal symplectic fillings. The proof is an application of the spine removal surgery operation recently introduced in joint work of the authors with Van Horn-Morris.
We prove that if a closed oriented 4-manifold X fibers over a 2- or 3-dimensional manifold, in most cases all of its virtual Betti numbers are infinite. In turn, we show that a closed oriented 4-manifold X which is not a tower of torus bundles and fibering over a 2- or 3-dimensional manifold does not admit a torsion symplectic canonical class, nor is of Kodaira dimension zero.
The geography of minimal symplectic 4-manifolds with arbitrary fundamental group and symplectic 6-manifolds with abelian fundamental group of small rank, and with arbitrary fundamental group are addressed.
In this paper, we determine the Euler characteristics and signatures of the exact symplectic fillings of the contact double, 3-fold or 4-fold cyclic covers of the standard contact 3-sphere branched over certain transverse quasi-positive links. These links include all quasi-positive knots with crossing numbers smaller than 11 and all quasi-positive links with crossing numbers smaller than 12 and nonzero nullity.
In this note we show that the Lagrangian Luttinger surgery preserves the symplectic Kodaira dimension. Some constraints on Lagrangian tori in symplectic four manifolds with non-positive Kodaira dimension are also derived.
Symplectic 4-manifolds with Kodaira dimension zero can be viewed as symplectic Calabi-Yau surfaces. We are able to completely determine their Betti numbers by proving two general results on quaternionic vector bundles.
We construct symplectic surface bundles over surfaces with positive signatures for all but 18 possible pairs of fiber and base genera. Meanwhile, we determine the commutator lengths of a few new mapping classes.
In \cite{AP3, AHP}, the first author and his collaborators constructed the irreducible symplectic $4$-manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to $(2n-1){\mathbb{CP}}^{2}\#(2n-1)\overline{\mathbb{CP}}^{2}$ for each integer $n \geq 25$, and the families of simply connected irreducible nonspin symplectic $4$-manifolds with positive signature that are interesting with respect to the symplectic geography problem. In this paper, we improve the main results in \cite{AP3, AHP}. In particular, we construct (i) an infinitely many irreducible symplectic and non-symplectic $4$-manifolds that…
Questions of geography of various classes of $4$-manifolds have been a central motivating question in $4$-manifold topology. Baykur and Korkmaz asked which small, simply connected, minimal $4$-manifolds admit a genus $2$ Lefschetz fibration. They were able to classify all the possible homeomorphism types and realize all but one with the exception of a genus $2$ Lefschetz fibration on a symplectic $4$-manifold homeomorphic, but not diffeomorphic to $3 \mathbb{CP}^2 \# 11\overline{\mathbb{CP}}^2$. We give a positive factorization of type $(10,10)$ that corresponds to such a genus $2$ Lefschetz f…
In this note we discuss the effect of the symplectic sum along spheres in symplectic four-manifolds on the Kodaira dimension of the underlying symplectic manifold. We find that the Kodaira dimension is non-decreasing. Moreover, we are able to obtain precise results on the structure of the manifold obtained from the blow down of an embedded symplectic -4-sphere.
The purpose of this note is to study the bounded isometry conjecture proposed by Lalonde and Polterovich. In particular, we show that the conjecture holds for the Kodaira-Thurston manifold with the standard symplectic form and for the 4-torus with all linear symplectic forms.
Suppose that A and B are symplectomorphic smooth affine varieties. If A is acylic of dimension 2 then B has the same log Kodaira dimension as A. If the dimension of A is 3, has log Kodaira dimension 2 and satisfies some other conditions then B cannot be of log general type. We also show that if A and B are symplectomorphic affine varieties of any dimension then any compactification of A by a projective variety is uniruled if and only if any such compactification of B is uniruled.
We define analogue of theta-functions on the Kodaira--Thurston manifold which is a compact 4-dimensional symplectic manifold and use them to construct canonical symplectic embedding of the Kodaira--Thurston manifold into the complex projective space (analogue of the Lefshetz theorem).
In this note, we verify that the complex Kodaira dimension $κ^h$ equals the symplectic Kodaira dimension $κ^s$ for smooth 4-manifolds with complex and symplectic structures. We also calculate the Kodaira dimension for many Lefschetz fibrations.
As was recently pointed out by McMullen and Taubes [Math. Res. Lett. 6 (1999) 681-696], there are 4-manifolds for which the diffeomorphism group does not act transitively on the deformation classes of orientation-compatible symplectic structures. This note points out some other 4-manifolds with this property which arise as the orientation-reversed versions of certain complex surfaces constructed by Kodaira [J. Analyse Math. 19 (1967) 207-215]. While this construction is arguably simpler than that of McMullen and Taubes, its simplicity comes at a price: the examples exhibited herein all have la…
In this paper we introduce the notion of relative Kodaira dimension for a symplectic 4-manifold M with a possibly disconnected embedded symplectic surface F. One notable feature is that the sphere components of F have to be discarded, which resembles the definition of Thurston norm of 3-manifolds. To define it we need to establish several homological properties of embedded symplectic surfaces. We also formulate the notion of relative minimal model, and prove the existence and the somewhat surprising uniqueness.
This is the second of a series of papers where we study the plurigenera, the Kodaira dimension and the Iitaka dimension on compact almost complex manifolds. By using the pseudoholomorphic pluricanonical map, we define the second version of Kodaira dimension as well as Iitaka dimension on compact almost complex manifolds. We show the almost complex structures with the top Kodaira dimension are integrable. For compact almost complex 4-manifolds with Kodaira dimension one, we obtain elliptic fibration like structural description. Some vanishing theorems in complex geometry are generalized to the …
The Kodaira-Thurston manifold is a quotient of a nilpotent Lie group by a cocompact lattice. We compute the family Gromov-Witten invariants which count pseudoholomorphic tori in the Kodaira-Thurston manifold. For a fixed symplectic form the Gromov-Witten invariant is trivial so we consider the twistor family of left-invariant symplectic forms which are orthogonal for some fixed metric on the Lie algebra. This family defines a loop in the space of symplectic forms. This is the first example of a genus one family Gromov-Witten computation for a non-Kähler manifold.
Let $(M,ω)$ be a symplectic 4-manifold of negative Kodaira dimension. Let $C$ be an $ω$-symplectic curve, $J$-holomorphic for some $J$ tamed by $ω$. Then $[C]^2$ is bounded below by a constant depending only on $ω$. Related bounded negativity problems for other structures are also briefly discussed. In particular, the symplectic result implies the bounded negativity conjecture for complex projective surfaces with Kodaira dimension $κ=-\infty$.
This is a survey on symplectic birational geometry. In arbitrary dimension, this subject is centered around the notion of uniruledness. In low dimensions, we will also discuss Kodaira dimension and minimality.
We prove that the Calabi-Yau equation can be solved on the Kodaira-Thurston manifold for all given $T^2$-invariant volume forms. This provides support for Donaldson's conjecture that Yau's theorem has an extension to symplectic four-manifolds with compatible but non-integrable almost complex structures.
We study a symplectic surgery operation we call unchaining, which effectively reduces the second Betti number and the symplectic Kodaira dimension at the same time. Using unchaining, we give novel constructions of symplectic Calabi-Yau surfaces from complex surfaces of general type, as well as from rational and ruled surfaces via the natural inverse of this operation. Combining the unchaining surgery with others, which all correspond to certain monodromy substitutions for Lefschetz pencils, we provide further applications, such as a complete resolution of a conjecture of Stipsicz on the existe…
Let X_1, X_2 be symplectic 4-manifolds containing symplectic surfaces F_1,F_2 of identical positive genus and opposite squares. Let Z denote the symplectic sum of X_1 and X_2 along the F_k. Using relative Gromov--Witten theory, we determine precisely when the symplectic 4-manifold Z is minimal (i.e., cannot be blown down); in particular, we prove that Z is minimal unless either: one of the X_k contains a (-1)-sphere disjoint from F_k; or one of the X_k admits a ruling with F_k as a section. As special cases, this proves a conjecture of Stipsicz asserting the minimality of fiber sums of Lefsche…
We make use of $\mathcal{F}$-structures and technology developed by Paternain - Petean to compute minimal entropy, minimal volume, and Yamabe invariant of symplectic 4-manifolds, as well as to study their collapse with sectional curvature bounded from below. À la Gompf, we show that these invariants vanish on symplectic 4-manifolds that realize any given finitely presented group as their fundamental group. We extend to the symplectic realm a result of LeBrun which relates the Kodaira dimension with the Yamabe invariant of compact complex surfaces.
Suppose $X^{N}$ is a closed oriented manifold, $α\in H^*(X;\mathbb{R})$ is a cohomology class, and $Z \in H_{N-k}(X)$ is an integral homology class. We ask the following question: is there an oriented embedded submanifold $Y^{N-k} \subset X$ with homology class $Z$ such that $α|_Y = 0 \in H^*(Y;\mathbb{R})$? In this article, we provide a family of computable obstructions to the existence of such 'exact' submanifolds in a given homology class which arise from studying formal deformations of the de Rham complex. In the final section, we apply these obstructions to prove that the following symple…
Given a Lagrangian sphere in a symplectic 4-manifold $(M, ω)$ with $b^+=1$, we find embedded symplectic surfaces intersecting it minimally. When the Kodaira dimension $κ$ of $(M, ω)$ is $-\infty$, this minimal intersection property turns out to be very powerful for both the uniqueness and existence problems of Lagrangian spheres. On the uniqueness side, for a symplectic rational manifold and any class which is not characteristic and ternary, we show that homologous Lagrangian spheres are smoothly isotopic, and when the Euler number is less than 8, we generalize Hind and Evans' Hamiltonian uniq…
The Kodaira--Thurston M manifold is a compact, 4-dimensional nilmanifold which is symplectic and complex but not Kaehler. We describe a construction of theta-functions associated to M which parallels the classical theory of theta-functions associated to the torus (from the point of view of representation theory and geometry), and yields pseudoperiodic complex-valued functions on R^4. There exists a three-step nilpotent Lie group G which acts transitively on the Kodaira--Thurston manifold M in a Hamiltonian fashion. The theta-functions discussed in this paper are intimately related to the repre…
We exhibit many examples of closed symplectic manifolds on which there is an autonomous Hamiltonian whose associated flow has no nonconstant periodic orbits (the only previous explicit example in the literature was the torus T^2n (n\geq 2) with an irrational symplectic structure). The underlying smooth manifolds of our examples include, for instance: the K3 surface and also infinitely many smooth manifolds homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to it; infinitely many minimal four-manifolds having any given finitely-presented group as their fundamental group; and simply connected minimal four-manif…
The first example of a compact manifold admitting both complex and symplectic structures but not admitting a Kähler structure is the renowned Kodaira-Thurston manifold. We review its construction and show that this paradigm is very general and is not related to the fundamental group. More specifically, we prove that the simply-connected $8$-dimensional compact manifold of [\textsc{M. Fernández and V. Muñoz}, \emph{An 8-dimensional non-formal simply connected symplectic manifold}, Ann. of Math. (2) \textbf{167}, no. 3, 1045--1054, 2008.] admits both symplectic and complex structures but does no…
Hamiltonian symplectic actions of tori on compact symplectic manifolds have been extensively studied in the past thirty years, and a number of classifications have been achieved, for instance in the case that the acting torus is $n$-dimensional and the symplectic manifold is $2n$-dimensional. In this case the $n$-dimensional orbits are Lagrangian, so it is natural to wonder whether there are interesting classes of symplectic actions with Lagrangian orbits, and that are not Hamiltonian. It turns out that there are many such classes which contain for example the Kodaira variety, and which can be…
It is shown that the formula for the Chern classes (in the Chow ring) of blow-ups of algebraic varieties, due to Porteous and Lascu-Scott, also holds (in the cohomology ring) for blow-ups of symplectic and complex manifolds. This was used by the second-named author in her solution of the geography problem for 8-dimensional symplectic manifolds. The proof equally applies to real blow-ups of arbitrary manifolds and yields the corresponding blow-up formula for the Stiefel-Whitney classes. In the course of the argument the topological analogue of Grothendieck's `formule clef' in intersection theor…
We study the asymptotics of almost holomorphic sections $s \in H^0_J(M, ω)$ of an ample line bundle $L \to M$ over an almost complex symplectic manifold in the sense of Boutet de Monvel-Guillemin. Such sections are defined as the kernel of a complex which is analogous to the $\bar{\partial}$ complex for a positive line bundle over a complex manifold. Our main result is the scaling limit asymptotics of the Szego projectors $Π_N$ of powers $L^N$. The Kodaira embedding theorem and Tian almost isometry theorem are almost immediate consequences of the scaling limit. We also relate such almost holom…
We consider exact fillings with vanishing first Chern class of asymptotically dynamically convex (ADC) manifolds. We construct two structure maps on the positive symplectic cohomology and prove that they are independent of the filling for ADC manifolds. The invariance of the structure maps implies that the vanishing of symplectic cohomology and the existence of symplectic dilations are properties independent of the filling for ADC manifolds. Using them, various topological applications on symplectic fillings are obtained, including the uniqueness of diffeomorphism types of fillings for many co…
This paper studies properly embedded surfaces in the 4-ball that are exotically knotted (i.e., topologically but not smoothly isotopic), and leverages this local phenomenon to study surfaces in larger 4-manifolds. The main results provide a new construction of exotically knotted surfaces, including exotic slice surfaces of all genera in the 4-ball and exotic closed surfaces in larger 4-manifolds. The construction is well-suited to the complex and symplectic settings, providing the first examples of exotically knotted complex curves and symplectic 2-spheres. Along the way, we articulate some di…
The spaces $H^0(M, L^N)$ of holomorphic sections of the powers of an ample line bundle $L$ over a compact Kähler manifold $(M,ω)$ have been generalized by Boutet de Monvel and Guillemin to spaces $H^0_J(M, L^N)$ of `almost holomorphic sections' of ample line bundles over an almost complex symplectic manifold $(M, J, ω)$. We consider the unit spheres $SH^0_J(M, L^N)$ in the spaces $H^0_J(M, L^N)$, which we equip with natural inner products. Our purpose is to show that, in a probabilistic sense, almost holomorphic sections behave like holomorphic sections as $N \to \infty$. Our first main result…
