We define a diffeomorphism invariant of smooth 4-manifolds which we can estimate for many smoothings of R^4 and other smooth 4-manifolds. Using this invariant we can show that uncountably many smoothings of R^4 support no Stein structure. (Gompf has constructed uncountably many smoothings of R^4 which do support Stein structures.) Other applications of this invariant are given.
We show that, for $\varepsilon=\dfrac{1}{4000}$, any action of a finite cyclic group by $(1+\varepsilon)$-bilipschitz homeomorphisms on a closed 3-manifold is conjugated to a smooth action.
In this paper we prove several related results concerning smooth $\Z_p$ or $\s^1$ actions on 4-manifolds. We show that there exists an infinite sequence of smooth 4-manifolds $X_n$, $n\geq 2$, which have the same integral homology and intersection form and the same Seiberg-Witten invariant, such that each $X_n$ supports no smooth $\s^1$-actions but admits a smooth $\Z_n$-action. In order to construct such manifolds, we devise a method for annihilating smooth $\s^1$-actions on 4-manifolds using Fintushel-Stern knot surgery, and apply it to the Kodaira-Thurston manifold in an equivariant setting…
In a recent paper, Park constructs certain exotic simply-connected four-manifolds with small Euler characteristics. Our aim here is to prove that the four-manifolds in his constructions are minimal.
The broken genera are orientation preserving diffeomorphism invariants of closed oriented 4-manifolds, defined via broken Lefschetz fibrations. We study the properties of the broken genera invariants, and calculate them for various 4-manifolds, while showing that the invariants are sensitive to exotic smooth structures.
We produce infinite families of exotic actions of finite cyclic groups on simply connected smooth 4-manifolds with nontrivial Seiberg-Witten invariants.
In this paper, we prove a geometrization conjecture, every orientable smooth closed 3-manifold with finite fundamental group is homeomorphic to $S^3/G$ for some finite cyclic subgroup $G\subset {Isom}^+(S^3)$.
The t-invariant can be considered as the Turaev-Viro invariant of order 5 computed for integer colors only. We compute all values of the t-invariant for Seifert manifolds with base sphere and three singular fibers. As a result we show that the manifolds parameters modulo five define the value of the t-invariant. Partially we show that there are 12 distinct values of the t-invariant for these manifolds. Some examples show that the t-invariant for these manifolds is not defined by the first homology group.
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 establish a framework for extending invariants of sutured manifolds to invariants of pairs of sutured manifolds who differ by attaching a basic slice along a torus boundary component. In the particular case of (bordered-)sutured Floer homology we show that this recovers the bordered-sutured Floer homology of a corresponding bordered-sutured three-manifold - though the framework is broad enough that it should be applicable in the setting of other invariants of sutured manifolds.
We introduce a generalization of the Dijkgraaf-Witten invariants for cusped or compact oriented 3-manifolds. We show that the generalized DW invariants distinguish some pairs of cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds with the same hyperbolic volumes and with the same Turaev-Viro invariants. We also present an example of a pair of cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds with the same hyperbolic volumes and with the same homology groups, whereas with distinct generalized DW invariants.
Motivated by the Turaev-Viro invariant of 3-manifolds, we construct a formal topological invariant of closed, oriented 3-manifolds involving spherical tetrahedra as an application of the asymptotic formula of 6j symbols for the Quantum Enveloping Algebra of sl(2). This invariant can be considered as a spherical version of a formal invariant of Ponzano-Regge and Korepanov defined via Euclidean tetrahedra.
We prove that there exist infinitely many topologically slice knots which cannot bound a smooth null-homologous disk in any definite 4-manifold. Furthermore, we show that we can take such knots so that they are linearly independent in the the knot concordance group.
We construct an invariant of open four-manifolds using the Heegaard Floer theory of Ozsvath and Szabo. We show that there is a manifold X homeomorphic to R^4 for which the invariant is non-trivial, showing that X is an exotic R^4.
On a smooth closed oriented $4$-manifold $M$ with a smooth action of a finite group $G$ on a Spin$^c$ structure, $G$-monopole invariant is defined by "counting" $G$-invariant solutions of Seiberg-Witten equations for any $G$-invariant Riemannian metric on $M$. We compute $G$-monopole invariants on some $G$-manifolds. For example, the connected sum of $k$ copies of a 4-manifold with nontrivial mod 2 Seiberg-Witten invariant has nonzero $\Bbb Z_k$-monopole invariant mod 2, where the $\Bbb Z_k$-action is given by cyclic permutations of $k$ summands.
Generalized Donaldson invariants of 4-manifolds are defined, using moduli spaces of anti-self-dual connections with structure group SU(N) or PSU(N). Some values of the invariants are calculated for the case that the 4-manifold arises by the knot-complement construction of Fintushel and Stern. The results are consistent with predictions of Marino and Moore.
We extend Turaev's definition of torsion invariants of 3-dimensional manifolds equipped with non-singular vector fields, by allowing (suitable) tangency circles to the boundary, and manifolds with non-zero Euler characteristic. We show that these invariants apply in particular to (the exterior of) Legendrian links in contact 3-manifolds. Our approach uses a combinatorial encoding of vector fields, based on standard spines. In this paper we extend this encoding from closed manifolds to manifolds with boundary.
We show the existence of hyperbolic 4-manifolds with vanishing Seiberg-Witten invariants, addressing a conjecture of Claude LeBrun. This is achieved by showing, using results in geometric and arithmetic group theory, that certain hyperbolic 4-manifolds contain L-spaces as hypersurfaces.
In this paper, we exploit a subtle indeterminacy in the definition of the spherical Kervaire-Milnor invariant which was discovered by R. Stong to construct non-spin 4-manifolds with even intersection form and prescribed signature.
We study locally standard $T^k$-manifolds $M$. In particular, we study the case where there is a continuous section to the orbit map $π: M \rightarrow M/T$. We give a classification of $T^k$-manifolds satisfying these conditions up to equivariant diffeomorphism.
We show that, under a certain condition, contact 5-manifolds can `coarsely' distinguish smooth structures on compact Stein 4-manifolds via contact open books. We also give a simple sufficient condition for an infinite family of Stein 4-manifolds to have an infinite subfamily of pairwise non-diffeomorphic Stein 4-manifolds. The proofs rely on the adjunction inequality. We remark that there are various examples of infinitely many pairwise exotic Stein 4-manifolds whose smooth structures can be distinguished by these results.
In this paper, it is explained that a topological invariant for 3-manifold $M$ with $b_1(M)=1$ can be constructed by applying Fukaya's Morse homotopy theoretic approach for Chern--Simons perturbation theory to a local system on $M$ of rational functions associated to the free abelian covering of $M$. Our invariant takes values in Garoufalidis--Rozansky's space of Jacobi diagrams whose edges are colored by rational functions. It is expected that our invariant gives a lot of nontrivial finite type invariants of 3-manifolds.
In this paper, we investigate existence of inequivalent smooth structures on closed smooth non-orientable 4-manifolds building upon results of Akbulut, Cappell-Shaneson, Fintushel-Stern, Gompf, and Stolz. We add to the number of known constructions and provide new examples of exotic manifolds that are obtained as an application of Gluck twists to the standard smooth structure. Inspection of the smooth structure on the oriented 2-covers yields existence results of orientation-reversing exotic free involutions.
We propose a modification of the three-manifold invariant based on the use of Euclidean metric values ascribed to the elements of manifold triangulation. We thus obtain a nontrivial invariant that can, in particular, distinguish non-homeomorphic lens spaces.
We construct noncomplex smooth 4-manifolds which admit genus-2 Lefschetz fibrations over S^2. The fibrations are necessarily hyperelliptic, and the resulting 4-manifolds are not even homotopy equivalent to complex surfaces. Furthermore, these examples show that fiber sums of holomorphic Lefschetz fibrations do not necessarily admit complex structures.
A new quantum gauge model is proposed. From this quantum gauge model we derive a quantum invariant of 3-manifolds. We show that this quantum invariant of 3-manifolds gives a classification of closed (orientable and connected) 3-manifolds. From this classification we then prove the Poincaré conjecture.
Let M be either CP^2#3CP^2bar or 3CP^2#5CP^2bar. We construct the first example of a simply-connected symplectic 4-manifold that is homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to M.
A trisection of a smooth, closed, oriented 4-manifold is a decomposition into three 4-dimensional 1-handlebodies meeting pairwise in 3-dimensional 1-handlebodies, with triple intersection a closed surface. The fundamental groups of the surface, the 3-dimensional handlebodies, the 4-dimensional handlebodies, and the closed 4-manifold, with homomorphisms between them induced by inclusion, form a commutative diagram of epimorphisms, which we call a trisection of the 4-manifold group. A trisected 4-manifold thus gives a trisected group; here we show that every trisected group uniquely determines a…
If a real value invariant of compact combinatorial manifolds (with or without boundary) depends only on the number of simplices in each dimension on the manifold, then the invariant is completely determined by Euler characteristics of the manifold and its boundary. So essentially, Euler characteristic is the unique invariant of this type.
We calculate Perelman's invariant for compact complex surfaces and a few other smooth four-manifolds. We also prove some results concerning the dependence of Perelman's invariant on the smooth structure.
We establish conditions for a continuous map of nonzero degree between a smooth closed manifold and a negatively curved manifold of dimension greater than four to be homotopic to a smooth cover, and in particular a diffeomorphism when the degree is one. The conditions hold when the volumes or entropy-volumes of the two manifolds differ by less than a uniform constant after an appropriate normalization of the metrics. The results are qualitatively sharp in the sense that the dependencies are necessary. We give a number of corollaries.
New estimates are derived concerning the behavior of self-dual hamonic 2-forms on a compact Riemannian 4-manifold with non-trivial Seiberg-Witten invariants. Applications include a vanishing theorem for certain Seiberg-Witten invariants on compact 4-manifolds of constant negative sectional curvature.
For every integer $k\geq 2$, we construct infinite families of mutually nondiffeomorphic irreducible smooth structures on the topological $4$-manifolds $(2k-1)(S^2\times S^2)$ and $(2k-1)(\CP#\CPb)$, the connected sums of $2k-1$ copies of $S^2\times S^2$ and $\CP#\CPb$.
We prove that every piecewise linear manifold of dimension up to four on which a finite group acts by piecewise linear homeomorphisms admits a compatible smooth structure with respect to which the group acts smoothly. This solves a challenge posed by Thurston in dimension three and confirms a conjecture by Kwasik and Lee in dimension four in a stronger form.
For every integer g greater than or equal to 2, there exist infinitely many pairwise nonhomeomorphic smooth 4-manifolds that admit genus-g Lefschetz fibrations over S^2 but do not carry any complex structure with either orientation. This extends a recent result of Ozbagci and Stipsicz.
In this paper, we collect various structural results to determine when an integral homology $3$--sphere bounds an acyclic smooth $4$--manifold, and when this can be upgraded to a Stein manifold. In a different direction we study whether smooth embedding of connected sums of lens spaces in $\mathbb{C}^2$ can be upgraded to a Stein embedding, and determined that this never happens.
We show that any closed oriented 3-manifold can be topologically embedded in some simply-connected closed symplectic 4-manifold, and that it can be made a smooth embedding after one stabilization. As a corollary of the proof we show that the homology cobordism group is generated by Stein fillable 3-manifolds. We also find obstructions on smooth embeddings: there exists 3-manifolds which cannot smoothly embed in a way that appropriately respect orientations in any symplectic manifold with weakly convex boundary. This embedding obstruction can also be used to detect exotic smooth structures on 4…
The main result of this paper states that a symplectic s-cobordism of elliptic 3-manifolds is diffeomorphic to a product (assuming a canonical contact structure on the boundary). Based on this theorem, we conjecture that a smooth s-cobordism of elliptic 3-manifolds is smoothly a product if its universal cover is smoothly a product. We explain how the conjecture fits naturally into the program of Taubes of constructing symplectic structures on an oriented smooth 4-manifold from generic self-dual harmonic forms. The paper also contains an auxiliary result of independent interest, which generaliz…
A theorem on the existence of the unique minimal topologic handle decomposition of differentiable simply connected five-dimensional manifolds is proved. For a decomposition of this sort, the number of handles of each index is given.
We show that the set of even positive definite lattices that arise from smooth, simply-connected 4-manifolds bounded by a fixed homology 3-sphere can depend on more than the ranks of the lattices. We provide two homology 3-spheres with distinct sets of such lattices, each containing a distinct nonempty subset of the rank 24 Niemeier lattices.
In this article, we shall investigate the relationship between the existence or non-existence of non-singular solutions to the normalized Ricci flow and smooth structures on closed 4-manifolds, where non-singular solutions to the normalized Ricci flow are solutions which exist for all time $t \in [0, \infty)$ with uniformly bounded sectional curvature. In dimension 4, there exist many compact topological manifolds admitting distinct smooth structures, i.e., exotic smooth structures. Interestingly, in this article, the difference between existence and non-existence of non-singular solutions to …
Let $M$ be $\CP#2\CPb$, $3\CP#4\CPb$ or $(2n-1)\CP#2n\CPb$ for any integer $n\geq 3$. We construct an irreducible symplectic 4-manifold homeomorphic to $M$ and also an infinite family of pairwise non-diffeomorphic irreducible non-symplectic 4-manifolds homeomorphic to $M$. We also construct such exotic smooth structures when $M$ is $\CP#4\CPb$ or $3\CP# k \CPb$ for $k=6,8,10$.
We give a surgery formula for the torsions and Seiberg-Witten invariants associated with $Spin^c$-structures on 3-manifolds. We use the technique of Reidemeister-type torsions and their refinements.