arXiv research

New proof shows 4-manifolds can't support complex structures.

Every 4-manifold can be smoothly embedded in complex projective 3-space.

Positivity of intersections in 4-manifolds leads to taming symplectic structures.

Study Hodge-de Rham numbers for almost complex 4-manifolds, extending properties from complex surfaces.

We define and study branched shadows of 4-manifolds as a combination of branched spines of 3-manifolds and Turaev's shadows. We use these objects to combinatorially represent 4-manifolds equipped with $Spin^c$-structures and homotopy classes of almost complex structures. We then use branched shadows to study complex 4-…

The paper introduces a new complexity measure for 4-manifolds and connects it to the trisection genus.

We introduce blow-up and blow-down operations for generalized complex 4-manifolds. Combining these with a surgery analogous to the logarithmic transform, we then construct generalized complex structures on nCP2 # m \bar{CP2} for n odd, a family of 4-manifolds which admit neither complex nor symplectic structures unless…

Exotic diffeomorphisms found on complex surfaces and 4-manifolds.

New symplectic 4-manifolds with non-negative signatures are constructed using complex surfaces and quotients.

New criterion for almost-complex 4-manifolds using polyhedral decompositions.

An odd Seiberg-Witten invariant imposes bounds on the signature of a closed, almost complex 4-manifold with vanishing first Chern class. This applies in particular to symplectic 4-manifolds of Kodaira dimension zero.

Which smooth compact 4-manifolds admit an Einstein metric with non-negative Einstein constant? A complete answer is provided in the special case of 4-manifolds that also happen to admit either a complex structure or a symplectic structure.

Lower bounds for PL 4-manifolds with boundary are improved.

New invariant detects non-homotopy equivalent 4-manifolds.

We show that every smooth, orientable, closed, connected 4-manifold can be represented by a loop in the pants complex. We use this representation, together with the fact that the pants complex is simply connected, to provide an elementary proof that such 4-manifolds are smoothly cobordant to $\coprod_m \mathbb{C}P^2 \c…

We introduce a surgery for generalized complex manifolds whose input is a symplectic 4-manifold containing a symplectic 2-torus with trivial normal bundle and whose output is a 4-manifold endowed with a generalized complex structure exhibiting type change along a 2-torus. Performing this surgery on a K3 surface, we obt…

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 nece…

New method for simplifying complex 4D shapes with boundaries.

4-manifolds can be broken down into pairs-of-pants and K3 surfaces.

New method to compute homology and intersection form of 4-manifolds.

New definition of skein lasagna module for specific 4-manifolds.

The paper solves a conjecture on almost complex 4-manifolds using refined Dolbeault cohomology.

4-manifolds can be uniquely described as loops of Morse functions.

The paper explores spaces of Kähler and symplectic forms on 4-manifolds.

It is known since 1954 that every 3-manifold bounds a 4-manifold. Thus, for instance, every 3-manifold has a surgery diagram. There are several proofs of this fact, including constructive proofs, but there has been little attention to the complexity of the 4-manifold produced. Given a 3-manifold M of complexity n, we s…

Within crystallization theory, two interesting PL invariants for $d$-manifolds have been introduced and studied, namely {\it gem-complexity} and {\it regular genus}. In the present paper we prove that, for any closed connected PL $4$-manifold $M$, its gem-complexity $\mathit{k}(M)$ and its regular genus $ \mathcal G(M)…

Given two smooth, oriented, closed 4-manifolds $M_1$ and $M_2$, we construct two invariants, $D^P(M_1, M_2)$ and $D(M_1, M_2)$, coming from distances in the pants complex and the dual curve complex respectively. To do this, we adapt work of Johnson on Heegaard splittings of 3-manifolds to the trisections of 4-manifolds…

4-manifolds with specific groups have unique homotopy types.

The paper constructs exotic knotted surfaces and curves in 4-manifolds.

We study the set of all closed oriented smooth 4-manifolds experimentally, according to a suitable complexity defined using Turaev's shadows. This complexity roughly measures how complicated the 2-skeleton of the 4-manifold is. We characterise here all the closed oriented 4-manifolds that have complexity at most one. T…

In this article we apply the technique of Luttinger surgery to study the complexity of the fundamental group of symplectic $4$-manifolds with holomorphic Euler number $χ_h=1$. We discuss the topology of symplectic $4$-manifolds with $b^+=1$ and provide various constructions of symplectic $4$-manifolds with $b^+=1$ and …

We prove that a compact smooth 4-manifold admits generalized complex structures of odd type if and only if it has a transversely holomorphic 2-foliation. Consequently, there exist generalized complex structures of odd type on a circle bundle over a closed Seifert fibered 3-manifold.

Study homotopy types of 4-manifolds, finding decompositions and conditions for desuspension.

Homotopy classification for certain 4-manifolds with dihedral fundamental groups.

We show the intersection of a compact almost complex subvariety of dimension $4$ and a compact almost complex submanifold of codimension $2$ is a $J$-holomorphic curve. This is a generalization of positivity of intersections for $J$-holomorphic curves in almost complex $4$-manifolds to higher dimensions. As an applicat…

Our purpose is to classify acyclic 4-manifolds having shadow complexity zero. In this paper, we focus on simple polyhedra and discuss this problem combinatorially. We consider a shadowed polyhedron $X$ and a simple polyhedron $X_0$ that is obtained by collapsing from $X$. Then we prove that there exists a canonical way…

We prove that a closed 4-manifold has shadow-complexity zero if and only if it is a kind of 4-dimensional graph manifold, which decomposes into some particular blocks along embedded copies of S^2 x S^1, plus some complex projective spaces. We deduce a classification of all 4-manifolds with finite fundamental group and …

New proof shows exotic 4-manifolds exist without complex calculations.

In this short article we give a criterion whether a given minimal symplectic 4-manifold with $b_{2}^{+}=1$ having a torsion-free canonical class is rational or ruled. As a corollary, we confirm that most of homotopy elliptic surfaces $E(1}_{K}$, K is a fibered knot in $S^3$, constructed by R. Fintushel and R. Stern are…

Researchers solved a complex problem for a specific type of 4-manifolds.

The study constructs geometrically decomposable aspherical 4-manifolds with non-zero signature and explores their properties.

Smooth 4-manifolds have simple horizontal decompositions.

Paper solves a metric-independent problem on almost Kähler 4-manifolds.

We classify, up to a local isometry, all non-Kahler almost Kahler 4-manifolds for which the fundamental 2-form is an eigenform of the Weyl tensor, and whose Ricci tensor is invariant with respect to the almost complex structure. Equivalently, such almost Kahler 4-manifolds satisfy the third curvature condition of A. Gr…

Study of curves in rational surfaces using multisections and torus actions.

The paper studies special crystallizations of 4-manifolds to minimize certain PL-invariants.

Special shadow-complexity equals k+1 for k copies of S1×S3.

An orientation preserving diffeomorphism over a surface embedded in a 4-manifold is called extendable, if this diffeomorphism is a restriction of an orientation preserving diffeomorphism on this 4-manifold. In this paper, we investigate conditions for extendability of diffeomorphisms over surfaces in the complex projec…