arXiv research

Surface corks modify 4-manifold structures without changing their homeomorphism type.

We first construct a genus zero positive allowable Lefschetz fibration over the disk (a genus zero PALF for short) on the Akbulut cork and describe the monodromy as a positive factorization in the mapping class group of a surface of genus zero with five boundary components. We then construct genus zero PALFs on infinit…

Found the smallest 4-manifold with a specific Betti number.

We prove that the Dolgachev surface E(1)_{2,3} admits a handlebody decomposition without 1- and 3- handles, and we draw the explicit picture of this handlebody. We also locate a "cork" inside of E(1)_{2,3}, so that E(1)_{2,3} is obtained from E(1) by twisting along this cork.

New method uses Chern-Simons filtration to study corks and bounding.

Strong corks derived from previous work are proven.

Abstract discusses different corks.

We show that for any po sitive integer $m$, there exist order $n$ Stein corks. The boundaries are cyclic branched covers of slice knots embedded in the boundary of corks. By applying these corks to generalized forms, we give a method producing examples of many finite order corks, which are possibly not Stein cork.

The Akbulut cork cannot transform all exotic 4-manifolds.

We discuss corks, and introduce new objects which we call plugs. Though plugs are fundamentally different objects, they also detect exotic smooth structures in 4-manifolds like corks. We discuss relation between corks, plugs and rational blow-downs. We show how to detect corks and plugs inside of some exotic manifolds.…

Detects exotic surfaces without smooth invariants, providing first example of knotted RP².

New corks found that are not strong and exotic.

Suppose that $X,X'$ are simply-connected closed exotic 4-manifolds. It is well-known that $X'$ is obtained by an order 2 cork twist of $X$. We give an infinite exotic family of 4-manifolds not generated by any infinite order cork. This is the first example admitting such a condition. We prove a necessary condition of 4…

The paper proves trisection genus of Akbulut cork and constructs many corks with trisection genus 3.

It is known that every compact Stein 4-manifolds can be embedded into a simply connected, minimal, closed, symplectic 4-manifold. By using this property, we discuss a new method of constructing corks. This method generates a large class of new corks including all the previously known ones. We prove that every one of th…

New method produces corks using Heegaard Floer homology.

We construct an infinite order loose cork.

Corks transform complex curves without changing topology.

New ribbon disks in 4D space, non-isotopic to each other.

For any positive integer $n$ we give a ${\mathbb Z}^n$-cork with a ${\mathbb Z}^n$-effective embedding in a 4-manifold being homeomorphic to $E(n)$. This means that a cork gives a subset ${\mathbb Z}^n$ in the differential structures on $E(n)$. Further, we describe handle decompositions of the twisted doubles (homotopy…

We prove for any positive integer $n$ there exist boundary-sum irreducible ${\mathbb Z}_n$-corks with Stein structure. Here `boundary-sum irreducible' means the manifold is indecomposable with respect to boundary-sum. We also verify that some of the finite order corks admit hyperbolic boundary by HIKMOT.

Here we give a concrete description of the cork automorphism $f:\partial W\to \partial W$ of the infinite order loose-cork $(W,f)$, defined in \cite{a2}. It is obtained by concatenating the defining ribbon disk of $W$ in $B^4$ by an infinite order isotopy of the boundary knot.

It is shown that any finite list of smooth closed simply-connected 4-manifolds homeomorphic to a given one X can be obtained by removing a single compact contractible submanifold (or cork) from X, and then regluing it by powers of a boundary diffeomorphism. We then use this result to "separate" finite families of corks…

It is known that every exotic smooth structure on a simply connected closed 4-manifold is determined by a codimention zero compact contractible Stein submanifold and an involution on its boundary. Such a pair is called a cork. In this paper, we construct infinitely many knotted imbeddings of corks in 4-manifolds such t…

We construct $G$-corks for any extension $G$ of $\mathbb Z^m$ by any finite subgroup of $\mathrm{SO}(4)$ and weakly equivariant $G$-corks for any extension $G$ of $\mathbb Z^m$ by any finite solvable group. In particular, this is the first example of $G$-corks for an infinite nonabelian group $G$ and answers a question…

Standard $S^4$ proved to be diffeomorphic to a curious homotopy sphere.

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 consider a family of corks, denoted $W_n$, constructed by Akbulut and Yasui. Each cork gives rise to an exotic structure on a smooth 4-manifold via a twist $τ$ on its boundary $Σ_n = \partial W_n$. We compute the instanton Floer homology of $Σ_n$ and show that the map induced on the instanton Floer homology by $τ: Σ…

We show the homotopy spheres $Σ_{n} = -W\smile_{f^{n}}W$, formed by doubling the infinite order loose-cork $(W,f)$ by iterates of the cork diffeomorphism $f: \partial W \to \partial W$ is $S^4$. To do this we first show that $Σ_{n}$ are obtained by Gluck twistings of $S^4$; then from this we show how to cancel $3$-han…

We construct an infinite family $\{ C_{n,k}\}_{k=1}^{\infty}$ of corks of Mazur type satisfying $2n\leq \mathrm{sc}^{\mathrm{sp}}(C_{n,k})\leq O(n^{3/2})$ for any positive integer $n$. Furthermore, using these corks, we construct an infinite family $\{(W_{n,k},W'_{n,k})\}_{k=1}^{\infty}$ of exotic pairs of $4$-manifold…

The author recently proved the existence of an infinite order cork: a compact, contractible submanifold $C$ of a 4-manifold and an infinite order diffeomorphism $f$ of $\partial C$ such that cutting out $C$ and regluing it by distinct powers of $f$ yields pairwise nondiffeomorphic manifolds. The present paper exhibits …

Disproves the Smale Conjecture for S^4 by showing Diff(S^4) is not SO(5).

Study on $r-$shake slice knots and proves 0-shake slice knots are slice.

Study relates trisected 4-manifolds to cork twists via γ-curves.

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 …

We utilize the Ozsvath-Szabo contact invariant to detect the action of involutions on certain homology spheres that are surgeries on symmetric links, generalizing a previous result of Akbulut and Durusoy. Potentially this may be useful to detect different smooth structures on 4-manifolds by cork twisting operation.

Protocorks link exotic 4-manifolds, with applications to Floer homology.

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…

We investigate two specific contractible manifolds (one Stein, and the other non-Stein) whose boundaries have non-trivial mapping class groups. In both cases we show that every diffeomorphism of their boundary extends to a diffeomorphism of the full manifold. In particular, these manifolds cannot be corks. The methods …

Building on the algebraic framework developed by Hendricks, Manolescu, and Zemke, we introduce and study a set of Floer-theoretic invariants aimed at detecting corks. Our invariants obstruct the extension of a given involution over any homology ball, rather than a particular contractible manifold. Unlike previous appro…

Thanks to a result of Lisca and Matic and a refinement by Plamenevskaya, it is known that on a 4-manifold with boundary Stein structures with non-isomorphic Spinc structures induce contact structures with distinct Ozsvath-Szabo invariants. Here we give an infinite family of examples showing that converse of Lisca-Matic…

In this paper we find infinitely many Mazur type manifolds and corks with shadow complexity one among the 4-manifolds constructed from contractible special polyhedra having one true vertex by using the notion of Turaev's shadow. We also find such manifolds among 4-manifolds constructed from Bing's house. Our manifolds …

Gluck twisting certain knots results in standard 4-spheres.

We show that, for each integer n, there exist infinitely many pairs of n-framed knots representing homeomorphic but non-diffeomorphic (Stein) 4-manifolds, which are the simplest possible exotic 4-manifolds regarding handlebody structures. To produce these examples, we introduce a new description of cork twists and util…

4-manifolds can be exotic after connected sum with S^2 x S^2.

Every exotic pair in 4-dimension is obtained each other by twisting a {\it cork} or {\it plug} which are codimension 0 submanifolds embedded in the 4-manifolds. The twist was an involution on the boundary of the submanifold. We define cork (or plug) with order $p\in {\Bbb N}\cup \{\infty\}$ and show there exists a plug…

The stable Andrews-Curtis conjecture in combinatorial group theory is the statement that every balanced presentation of the trivial group can be simplified to the trivial form by elementary moves corresponding to "handle-slides" together with "stabilization" moves. Schoenflies conjecture is the statement that the compl…

A simple characterization is given of open subsets of a complex surface that smoothly perturb to Stein open subsets. As applications, complex 2-space C^2 contains domains of holomorphy (Stein open subsets) that are exotic R^4's, and others homotopy equivalent to the 2-sphere but cut out by smooth, compact 3-manifolds. …