arXiv research

New corks found that are not strong and exotic.

New examples of non-smoothable homeomorphisms of 4-manifolds with boundary found.

In this paper we consider the realization of DE attractors by self-diffeomorphisms of manifolds. For any expanding self-map $φ:M\to M$ of a connected, closed $p$-dimensional manifold $M$, one can always realize a $(p,q)$-type attractor derived from $φ$ by a compactly-supported self-diffeomorphsm of $\RR^{p+q}$, as long…

Study on topological pseudo-isotopies of 4-manifolds, proving some cases and finding counterexamples.

Ruberman gave the first examples of self-diffeomorphisms of four-manifolds that are isotopic to the identity in the topological category but not smoothly so. We give another example of this phenomenon, using the Dehn twist along a 3-sphere in the connected sum of two K3 surfaces.

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 sel…

We show that the action of Cremona transformations on the real points of quadrics exhibits the full complexity of the diffeomorphisms of the sphere, the torus, and of all non-orientable surfaces. The main result says that if X is rational, then Aut(X), the group of algebraic automorphisms, is dense in Diff(X), the grou…

We give necessary and sufficient conditions for a closed smooth 6-manifold N to be diffeomorphic to a product of a surface F and a simply connected 4-manifold M in terms of basic invariants like the fundamental group and cohomological data. Any isometry of the intersection form of M is realized by a self-diffeomorphism…

We construct an infinite order cork (W,f), which means that W is a smooth compact contractible 4-manifold with Stein structure, and f is a self diffeomorphism of the boundary of W, such that the n-fold composition maps f^{n}=f o f o... o f give rise to smoothly distinct corks (W, f^{n}) for sufficiently large values of…

We construct a compact, contractible 4-manifold $C$, an infinite-order self-diffeomorphism $f$ of its boundary, and a smooth embedding of $C$ into a closed, simply connected 4-manifold $X$, such that the manifolds obtained by cutting $C$ out of $X$ and regluing it by powers of $f$ are all pairwise nondiffeomorphic. The…

Authors prove existence of exotic surfaces and invariants not detecting self-diffeomorphisms.

In this paper we prove that for all $n=4k-2$, $k\ge2$ there exists a closed smooth complex hyperbolic manifold $M$ with real dimension $n$ having non-trivial $π_1(\mathcal{T}^{<0}(M))$. $\mathcal{T}^{<0}(M)$ denotes the Teichmüller space of all negatively curved Riemannian metrics on $M$, which is the topological quoti…

The symplectic cone of a closed oriented 4-manifold is the set of cohomology classes represented by symplectic forms. A well-known conjecture describes this cone for every minimal Kaehler surface. We consider the case of the elliptic surfaces E(n) and focus on a slightly weaker conjecture for the closure of the symplec…

The affine diffeomorphism group $\mathrm{Aff}(S,q)$ of a half-translation surface $(S,q)$ comprise the self-diffeomorphisms with constant differential away from the singularities. This group coincides with the stabiliser of the associated Teichmüller disc under the action of the mapping class group on Teichmüller space…

In this paper we classify symplectic Lefschetz fibrations (with empty base locus) on a four-manifold which is the product of a three-manifold with a circle. This result provides further evidence in support of the following conjecture regarding symplectic structures on such a four-manifold: if the product of a three-man…

Researchers compute quantum invariant for four-puncture sphere, verifying volume conjecture.

We call a closed, connected, orientable manifold in one of the categories TOP, PL or DIFF chiral if it does not admit an orientation-reversing automorphism and amphicheiral otherwise. Moreover, we call a manifold strongly chiral if it does not admit a self-map of degree -1. We prove that there are strongly chiral, smoo…

We provide the first information on diffeotopy groups of exotic smoothings of R^4: For each of uncountably many smoothings, there are uncountably many isotopy classes of self-diffeomorphisms. We realize these by various explicit group actions. There are also actions at infinity by nonfinitely generated groups, for whic…

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…

Let M denote the total space of a Lefschetz fibration, obtained by blowing up a Lefschetz pencil on an algebraic surface. We consider the n-fold fibre sum M(n), generalizing the construction of the elliptic surfaces E(n). For a Lefschetz pencil on a simply-connected minimal surface of general type we partially calculat…

David Gabai recently proved a smooth 4-dimensional "Light Bulb Theorem" in the absence of 2-torsion in the fundamental group. We extend his result to 4-manifolds with arbitrary fundamental group by showing that an invariant of Mike Freedman and Frank Quinn gives the complete obstruction to "homotopy implies isotopy" fo…

In this paper we prove that for all $n=4k-2$, $k\ge2$ there exists closed $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifolds $M$ with negative sectional curvature that do not have the homotopy type of a locally symmetric space, such that $π_{1}(\mathcal{T}^{<0}(M))$ is non-trivial. $\mathcal{T}^{<0}(M)$ denotes the Teichmüller space…

The mapping class group $MCG(Σ_g)$ of a surface of genus $g$ has a long-history in topology and group theory. More recently, the mapping class group $MCG(V_g)$ of a handlebody $V_g$ of genus $g$ has become an interesting topic in the study of $3$ manifolds, largely thanks to Heegaard splitting. While $MCG(V_g)$ can be …

New example of non-smooth isotopy after stabilization in 4-manifolds.

Let $M$ be a smooth closed orientable surface. Let $F$ be the space of Morse functions on $M$, and $\mathbb{F}^1$ the space of framed Morse functions, both endowed with $C^\infty$-topology. The space $\mathbb{F}^0$ of special framed Morse functions is defined. We prove that the inclusion mapping $\mathbb{F}^0\hookright…

Here we study two interesting smooth contractible manifolds, whose boundaries have non-trivial mapping class groups. The first one is a non-Stein contractible manifold, such that every self diffeomorphism of its boundary extends inside; implying that this manifold can not be a loose cork. The second example is a Stein …

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 Fl…

Study integral simplicial volume of cyclic covers of torus bundles.

The Square Root Normal Field (SRNF), introduced by Jermyn et al. in [3], provides a way of representing immersed surfaces in $\mathbb R^3$, and equipping the set of these immersions with a "distance function" (to be precise, a pseudometric) that is easy to compute. Importantly, this distance function is invariant under…

Let $Q$ be a smooth compact orientable 3--manifold with smooth boundary $\partial Q$. Let $\mathcal{B}$ be the set of exact 2--forms $B\inΩ^2(Q)$ such that $j_{\partial Q}^*B=0$, where $j_{\partial Q}:{\partial Q}\to Q$ is the inclusion map. The group $\mathcal{D}=\mathrm{Diff}_0(Q)$ of self-diffeomorphisms of $Q$ isot…

We work in the smooth category. The following problem was suggested by E. Rees in 2002: describe the precomposition action of self-diffeomorphisms of S^p x S^q on the set of isotopy classes of embeddings S^p x S^q -> R^m. Let g : S^p x S^q -> R^m be an embedding such that g |_{a x S^q} : a x S^q -> R^m - g (b x S^q) is…

Infinite rank groups found in 3-manifolds with infinite fundamental groups.

A virtual knot is an equivalence class of embeddings of $S^1$ into thickened (closed oriented) surfaces, up to self-diffeomorphism of the surface and certain handle stabilisations. The slice genus of a virtual knot is defined diagrammatically, in direct analogy to that of a classical knot. However, it may be defined,…

In this thesis we describe how to estimate the distance spanned in the pants graph by a train track splitting sequence on a surface, up to multiplicative and additive constants. If some moderate assumptions on a splitting sequence are satisfied, each vertex set of a train track in it will represent a vertex of a graph …