We construct examples of nonresolvable generalized $n$-manifolds, $n\geq 6$, with arbitrary resolution obstruction, homotopy equivalent to any simply connected, closed $n$-manifold. We further investigate the structure of generalized manifolds and present a program for understanding their topology.
We give a complete classification of the spherical 3-manifolds that bound smooth rational homology 4-balls. Furthermore, we determine the order of spherical 3-manifolds in the rational homology cobordism group of rational homology 3-spheres. To this end, we use constraints for 3-manifolds to bound rational homology balls induced from Donaldson's diagonalization theorem and Heegaard Floer correction terms.
We provide upper bounds on the size of the homology of a closed aspherical Riemannian manifold that only depend on the systole and the volume of balls. Further, we show that linear growth of mod p Betti numbers or exponential growth of torsion homology imply that a closed aspherical manifold is "large".
It is known that every closed oriented 3-manifold is homology cobordant to a hyperbolic 3-manifold. By contrast we show that many homology cobordism classes contain no Seifert fibered 3-manifold. This is accomplished by determining the isomorphism type of the rational cohomology ring of all Seifert fibered 3-manifolds with no 2-torsion in their first homology. Then we exhibit families of examples of 3-manifolds (obtained by surgery on links), with fixed linking form and cohomology ring, that are not homology cobordant to any Seifert fibered space (as shown by their rational cohomology ring). T…
We show that a graph manifold which is a Z-homology 3-sphere not homeomorphic to either the 3-sphere or the Poincaré homology 3-sphere admits a horizontal foliation. This combines with known results to show that the conditions of not being an L-space, of having a left-orderable fundamental group, and of admitting a co-oriented taut foliation, are equivalent for graph manifold Z-homology 3-spheres.
It was shown in my earlier article that the splice diagram of a rational homology sphere graph manifold determines the manifolds universal abelian cover. In this article we use the proof of this to give a condition on the splice diagram to determine when the universal abelian cover itself is a rational homology sphere.
For a closed 4-manifold X and closed 3-manifold M we investigate the smallest integer n (perhaps infinity) such that M embeds in the connected sum of n copies of X. It is proven that any lens space (or homology lens space) embeds topologically locally flatly in a connected sum of 8 copies of the complex projective plane.
We investigate rational homology cobordisms of 3-manifolds with non-zero first Betti number. This is motivated by the natural generalization of the slice-ribbon conjecture to multicomponent links. In particular we consider the problem of which rational homology $S^1\times S^2$'s bound rational homology $S^1\times D^3$'s. We give a simple procedure to construct rational homology cobordisms between plumbed 3-manifold. We introduce a family F of plumbed 3-manifolds with first Betti number equal to 1. By adapting an obstruction based on Donaldson's diagonalization theorem we characterize all manif…
We refine Matveev's result asserting that any two closed oriented 3-manifolds can be related by a sequence of borromean surgeries if and only if they have isomorphic first homology groups and linking pairings. Indeed, a borromean surgery induces a canonical isomorphism between the first homology groups of the involved 3-manifolds, which preserves the linking pairing. We prove that any such isomorphism is induced by a sequence of borromean surgeries. As an intermediate result, we prove that a given algebraic square finite presentation of the first homology group of a 3-manifold, which encodes t…
We establish a structural understanding of the involutive Heegaard Floer homology for all linear combinations of almost-rational (AR) plumbed three-manifolds. We use this to show that the Neumann-Siebenmann invariant is a homology cobordism invariant for all linear combinations of AR plumbed homology spheres. As a corollary, we prove that if $Y$ is a linear combination of AR plumbed homology spheres with $μ(Y) = 1$, then $Y$ is not torsion in the homology cobordism group. A general computation of the involutive Heegaard Floer correction terms for these spaces is also included.
This paper continues our exploration of homology cobordism of 3-manifolds using our recent results on Cheeger-Gromov rho-invariants associated to amenable representations. We introduce a new type of torsion in 3-manifold groups we call hidden torsion, and an algebraic approximation we call local hidden torsion. We construct infinitely many hyperbolic 3-manifolds which have local hidden torsion in the transfinite lower central subgroup. By realizing Cheeger-Gromov invariants over amenable groups, we show that our hyperbolic 3-manifolds are not pairwise homology cobordant, yet remain indistingui…
This article introduces descriptive cellular homology on cell complexes, which is an extension of J.H.C. Whitehead's CW topology. A main result is that a descriptive cellular complex is a topology on fibres in a fibre bundle. An application of two forms of cellular homology is given in terms of the persistence of shapes in CW spaces.
We give some constraints on intersection forms of spin 4-manifolds bounded by Seifert rational homology 3-spheres in terms of the $\barμ$ invariant and compare them with those in terms of the $κ$ invariant. We also show that the difference between $κ$ and $-\barμ$ for a Seifert rational homology 3-sphere is at most 2, and under certain extra conditions the difference is 0.
This is a companion paper to earlier work of the authors, which interprets the Heegaard Floer homology for a manifold with torus boundary in terms of immersed curves in a punctured torus. We prove a variety of properties of this invariant, paying particular attention to its relation to knot Floer homology, the Thurston norm, and the Turaev torsion. We also give a geometric description of the gradings package from bordered Heegaard Floer homology and establish a symmetry under spin$^c$ conjugation; this symmetry gives rise to genus one mutation invariance in Heegaard Floer homology for closed t…
We prove an excision theorem for the singular instanton Floer homology that allows the excision surfaces to intersect the singular locus. This is an extension of the non-singular excision theorem by Kronheimer and Mrowka and the genus-zero singular excision theorem by Street. We use the singular excision theorem to define an instanton Floer homology theory for sutured manifolds with tangles. As applications, we prove that the annular Khovanov homology (1) detects the unlink, (2) detects the closure of the trivial braid, and (3) distinguishes braid closures from other links; we also prove that …
Let $N$ be a prime 3-manifold that is not a closed graph manifold. Building on a result of Hongbin Sun and using a result of Asaf Hadari we show that for every $k\in\Bbb{N}$ there exists a finite cover $\tilde{N}$ of $N$ such that $|\operatorname{Tor} H_1(\tilde{N};\Bbb{Z})|>k$.
A major challenge in the study of the structure of the three-dimensional homology cobordism group is to understand the interaction between hyperbolic geometry and homology cobordism. In this paper, for a hyperbolic homology sphere $Y$ we derive explicit bounds on the relative grading between irreducible solutions to the Seiberg-Witten equations and the reducible one in terms of the spectral and Riemannian geometry of $Y$. Using this, we provide explicit bounds on some numerical invariants arising in monopole Floer homology (and its $\mathrm{Pin}(2)$-equivariant refinement). We apply this to st…
We study the homology of Riemannian manifolds of finite volume that are covered by an $r$-fold product $(\mathbb{H}^2)^r = \mathbb{H}^2 \times \ldots \times \mathbb{H}^2$ of hyperbolic planes. Using a variation of a method developed by Avramidi and Nguyen-Phan, we show that any such manifold $M$ possesses, up to finite coverings, an arbitrarily large number of compact oriented flat totally geodesic $r$-dimensional submanifolds whose fundamental classes are linearly independent in the homology group $H_r(M;\mathbb{Z})$.
We fix a null-homologous, homotopically essential knot $J$ in a 3-manifold with PTFA fundamental group and study concordance of knots that are homotopic to $J$. We construct an infinite family of knots that are characteristic to $J$, and then use $L^2$-methods to show that they are not concordant to $J$.
In analogy with the Thurston norm, we define for an orientable 3-manifold $M$ a numerical function on $H_2(M;Q/Z)$. This function measures the minimal complexity of folded surfaces representing a given homology class. A similar function is defined on the torsion subgroup of $H_1(M)$. These functions are estimated from below in terms of abelian torsions of $M$.
We compute the Pin(2)-equivariant monopole Floer homology for the class of plumbed 3-manifolds with at most one "bad" vertex (in the sense of Ozsvath and Szabo). We show that for these manifolds, the Pin(2)-equivariant monopole Floer homology can be calculated in terms of the Heegaard Floer/monopole Floer lattice complex defined by Nemethi. Moreover, we prove that in such cases the ranks of the usual monopole Floer homology groups suffice to determine both the Manolescu correction terms and the Pin(2)-homology as an abelian group. As an application of this, we show that $β(-Y, s) = \barμ(Y, s)…
Let X be a simply-connected closed oriented 4-manifold and A an embedded surface of genus g and negative self-intersection -N. We show that for fixed genus g there is an upper bound on N if the homology class of A is divisible or characteristic. In particular, for genus zero, there is a lower bound on the self-intersection of embedded spheres in these kinds of homology classes. This question is related to a problem from the Kirby list.
In the present paper, we construct a cusped hyperbolic $4$-manifold with all cusp sections homeomorphic to the Hantzsche-Wendt manifold, which is a rational homology sphere. By a result of Golénia and Moroianu, the Laplacian on $2$-forms on such a manifold has purely discrete spectrum. This shows that one of the main results of Mazzeo and Phillips from 1990 cannot hold without additional assumptions on the homology of the cusps. This also answers a question by Golénia and Moroianu from 2012. We also correct and refine the incomplete classification of compact orientable flat $3$-manifolds arisi…
The smooth rational homology cobordism group of rational homology three spheres, T, contains subgroups T_p generated by 3-manifolds with first homology p-torsion, where p is a prime. Rochlin's theorem and gauge theoretic methods show that the inclusion of the direct sum of the T_p into T has infinitely generated kernel. We use Heegaard-Floer methods to show that the cokernel is infinitely generated. On the level of Witt groups of linking forms and conjecturally in the topological category, the inclusion is an isomorphism. One application is the demonstration of the failure in dimension three o…
Given a self-diffeomorphism h of a closed, orientable surface S and an embedding f of S into a three-manifold M, we construct a mutant manifold N by cutting M along f(S) and regluing by h. We will consider whether there are any gluings such that for any embedding, the manifold and its mutant have isomorphic Heegaard Floer homology. In particular, we will demonstrate that if the gluing is not isotopic to the identity, then there exists an embedding of S into a three-manifold M such that the rank of the non-torsion summands of the Heegaard Floer homology of M differs from that of its mutant. We …
In Thurston's notes, he gives two different definitions of the Gromov norm (also called simplicial volume) of a manifold and states that they are equal but does not prove it. Gromov proves it in the special case of hyperbolic manifolds as a consequence of his proof that simplicial volume is proportional to volume. We give a proof for all differentiable manifolds. This version corrects a few typos in an earlier version and formally proves the theorem for differentiable manifolds rather than locally finite simplicial complexes (but very few actual changes have been made).
For each partial flag manifold of SU(N), we define a Floer homology theory for knots in 3-manifolds, using instantons with codimension-2 singularities.
Given a closed 3--manifold $Y$, we show that the Heegaard Floer homology determines whether $Y$ fibres over the circle with a fibre of negative Euler characteristic. This is an analogue of an earlier result about knots proved by Ghiggini and the author.
We present an alternative definition for the Goussarov--Habiro filtration of the Z-module freely generated by oriented integral homology 3-spheres, by means of Lagrangian-preserving homology handlebody replacements (LP-surgeries). Garoufalidis, Goussarov and Polyak proved that the graded space (G_n)_n associated to this filtration is generated by Jacobi diagrams. Here, we express elements associated to LP-surgeries as explicit combinations of these Jacobi diagrams in (G_n)_n. The obtained coefficient in front of a Jacobi diagram is computed like its weight system with respect to a Lie algebra …
Using the link surgery formula for Heegaard Floer homology we find a spectral sequence from the lattice homology of a plumbing tree to the Heegaard Floer homology of the corresponding 3-manifold. This spectral sequence shows that for graphs with at most two "bad" vertices, the lattice homology is isomorphic to the Heegaard Floer homology of the underlying 3-manifold.
We show that all versions of Heegaard Floer homology, link Floer homology, and sutured Floer homology are natural. That is, they assign concrete groups to each based 3-manifold, based link, and balanced sutured manifold, respectively. Furthermore, we functorially assign isomorphisms to (based) diffeomorphisms, and show that this assignment is isotopy invariant. The proof relies on finding a simple generating set for the fundamental group of the "space of Heegaard diagrams," and then showing that Heegaard Floer homology has no monodromy around these generators. In fact, this allows us to give s…
We perform two explicit computations of bordered Heegaard Floer invariants. The first is the type D trimodule associated to the trivial S^1 bundle over the pair of pants P. The second is a bimodule that is necessary for self-gluing, when two torus boundary components of a bordered manifold are glued to each other. Using the results of these two computations, we describe an algorithm for computing HF-hat of any graph manifold.
There are some similarities between cohomology of SU(2)-representation varieties of the fundamental group of some link complements and the Khovanov homology of the links. We start here a program to explain a possible source of these similarities. We introduce a symplectic manifold ${\mathscr M}$ with an action of the braid group $B_{2n}$ preserving the symplectic structure. The action allows to associate a Lagrangian submanifold of ${\mathscr M}$ to every braid. The representation variety of a link can then be described as the intersection of such Lagrangian submanifolds, given a braid present…
The Bryant-Ferry-Mio-Weinberger surgery exact sequence for high-dimensional compact ANR homology manifolds is used to obtain transversality, splitting and bordism results for homology manifolds, generalizing previous work of Johnston.
Milnor proved two uniqueness theorems for axiomatic (co)homology: one for pairs of compacta (1960) and another, in particular, for pairs of countable simplicial complexes (1961). We obtain their common generalization: the Eilenberg-Steenrod axioms along with Milnor's map excision axiom and a (non-obvious) common generalization of Milnor's two additivity axioms suffice to uniquely characterize (co)homology of closed pairs of Polish spaces (=separable complete metrizable spaces). The proof provides a combinatorial description of the (co)homology of a Polish space in terms of a cellular (co)chain…
We define a model for the homology of manifolds and use it to describe the intersection product on the homology of compact oriented manifolds and to define homological quantum field theories which generalizes the notions of string topology introduced by Chas and Sullivan and homotopy quantum field theories introduced by Turaev.
In this article, we classify 1-connected 8-dimensional Poincaré complexes, topological manifolds and smooth manifolds with the same homology as $S^3\times S^5$. Some questions of Escher-Ziller are also discussed.
We show that Lück's conjecture on torsion growth in homology implies that two 3-manifolds have equal volume if the fundamental groups have the same set of finite quotients.
The based loop space homology of a special family of homogeneous spaces, flag manifolds of connected compact Lie groups is studied. First, the rational homology of the based loop space on a complete flag manifold is calculated together with its Pontrjagin structure. Second, it is shown that the integral homology of the based loop space on a flag manifold is torsion free. This results in a description of the integral homology. In addition, the integral Pontrjagin structure is determined.
The conormal Lagrangian $L_K$ of a knot $K$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$ is the submanifold of the cotangent bundle $T^* \mathbb{R}^3$ consisting of covectors along $K$ that annihilate tangent vectors to $K$. By intersecting with the unit cotangent bundle $S^* \mathbb{R}^3$, one obtains the unit conormal $Λ_K$, and the Legendrian contact homology of $Λ_K$ is a knot invariant of $K$, known as knot contact homology. We define a version of string topology for strings in $\mathbb{R}^3 \cup L_K$ and prove that this is isomorphic in degree 0 to knot contact homology. The string topology perspective gives a top…
The main result of this paper is that any $3$-dimensional manifold with a finite group action is equivariantly, invertibly homology cobordant to a hyperbolic manifold; this result holds with suitable twisted coefficients as well. The following two consequences motivated this work. First, there are hyperbolic equivariant corks (as defined in previous work of the authors) for a wide class of finite groups. Second, any finite group that acts on a homology $3$-sphere also acts on a hyperbolic homology $3$-sphere. The theorem has other applications, including establishing the existence of an infini…
We show that for any set of primes $\mathcal{P}$ there exists a space $M_{\mathcal{P}}$ which is a homology and cohomology 3-manifold with coefficients in $\mathbb{Z}_{p}$ for $p\in \mathcal{ P}$ and is not a homology or cohomology 3-manifold with coefficients in $\mathbb{Z}_q$ for $q\not\in \mathcal{ P}$. Moreover, $M_{\mathcal{P}}$ is neither a homology nor cohomology 3-manifold with coefficients in $\mathbb{Z}$ or $\mathbb{Q}$.
Let M be an arithmetic hyperbolic 3-manifold, such as a Bianchi manifold. We conjecture that there is a basis for the second homology of M, where each basis element is represented by a surface of `low' genus, and give evidence for this. We explain the relationship between this conjecture and the study of torsion homology growth.
This is the fourth of five papers that construct an isomorphism between the Seiberg-Witten Floer homology and the Heegaard Floer homology of a given compact, oriented 3-manifold. The isomorphism is given as a composition of three isomorphisms; the first of these relates a version of embedded contact homology on an an auxillary manifold to the Heegaard Floer homology on the original. The second isomorphism relates the relevant version of the embedded contact homology on the auxilliary manifold with a version of the Seiberg-Witten Floer homology on this same manifold. The third isomorphism relat…
We establish lower bounds on the dimensions in which arithmetic groups with torsion can act on acyclic manifolds and homology spheres. The bounds rely on the existence of elementary p-groups in the groups concerned. In some cases, including Sp(2n,Z), the bounds we obtain are sharp: if X is a generalized Z/3-homology sphere of dimension less than 2n-1 or a Z/3-acyclic Z/3-homology manifold of dimension less than 2n, and if n \geq 3, then any action of Sp(2n,Z) by homeomorphisms on X is trivial; if n = 2, then every action of Sp(2n,Z) on X factors through the abelianization of Sp(4,Z), which is …
We use contact handle decompositions and a stabilization process to compute the cylindrical contact homology of a subcritical Stein-fillable contact manifold with vanishing first Chern class, and show that it is completely determined by the homology of a subcritical Stein-filling of the contact manifold.
We show how the periodicity of a homology sphere is reflected in the Reshetikhin-Turaev-Witten invariants of the manifold. These yield a criterion for the periodicity of a homology sphere.
We give a combinatorial description of the Legendrian contact homology algebra associated to a Legendrian link in $S^1\times S^2$ or any connected sum $\#^k(S^1\times S^2)$, viewed as the contact boundary of the Weinstein manifold obtained by attaching 1-handles to the 4-ball. In view of the surgery formula for symplectic homology, this gives a combinatorial description of the symplectic homology of any 4-dimensional Weinstein manifold (and of the linearized contact homology of its boundary). We also study examples and discuss the invariance of the Legendrian homology algebra under deformation…
An explicit (-1)^n-quadratic form over Z[Z^{2n}] representing the surgery problem E_8 x T^{2n} is obtained, for use in the Bryant-Ferry-Mio-Weinberger construction of 2n-dimensional exotic homology manifolds.