Indecomposability of certain Lefschetz fibrations

We prove that Lefschetz fibrations admitting a section of square cannot be decomposed as fiber sums. In particular, Lefschetz fibrations on symplectic 4-manifolds found by Donaldson are indecomposable. This observation also shows that symplectic Lefschetz fibrations are not necessarily fiber sums of holomorphic ones.

     

Chern numbers of certain Lefschetz fibrations

We address the geography problem of relatively minimal Lefschetz fibrations over surfaces of nonzero genus and prove that if the fiber-genus of the fibration is positive, then (equivalently, ) holds for those symplectic 4-manifolds. A useful characterization of minimality of such symplectic 4-manifolds is also proved.

     

Minimal number of singular fibers in a Lefschetz fibration

There exists a (relatively minimal) genus Lefschetz fibration with only one singular fiber over a closed (Riemann) surface of genus iff and . The singular fiber can be chosen to be reducible or irreducible. Other results are that every Dehn twist on a closed surface of genus at least three is a product of two commutators and no Dehn twist on any closed surface is equal to a single commutator.

     

Poisson cohomology of broken Lefschetz fibrations

We compute the formal Poisson cohomology of a broken Lefschetz fibration by calculating it at fold and Lefschetz singularities. Near a fold singularity the computation reduces to that for a point singularity in 3 dimensions. For the Poisson cohomology around singular points we adapt techniques developed for the Sklyanin algebra. As a side result, we give compact formulas for the Poisson coboundary operator of an arbitrary Jacobian Poisson structure in 4 dimensions.     

Surface Bundles with Nonvanishing Signature

Using the theory of Lefschetz fibrations and recent advances in mapping class group theory, surface bundles over surfaces with nonzero signature and small base genus are constructed. In particular, a genus-5 fibration over the surface of genus 26 with nonzero signature is given –- improving former results on the possible base genera for surface bundles over surfaces with nonzero signature.     

Nonisomorphic Lefschetz fibrations on knot surgery 4-manifolds

In this article we construct an infinite family of simply connected minimal symplectic 4-manifolds, each of which admits at least two nonisomorphic Lefschetz fibration structures with the same generic fiber. We obtain such examples by performing knot surgery on an elliptic surface E(n) using a special type of 2-bridge knots. This work was supported by grant No. R01-2005-000-10625-0 from the KOSEF and by the Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (KRF-2007-314-C00024).     

Geography of 4-manifolds with positive scalar curvature

We discuss the geography problem of closed oriented 4-manifolds that admit a Riemannian metric of positive scalar curvature, and use it to survey mathematical work employed to address Gromov’s observation that manifolds with positive scalar curvature tend to be inessential by focusing on the four-dimensional case. We also point out an strengthening of a result of Carr and its extension to the non-orientable realm.     

Compact hyperbolic 4-manifolds of small volume

We prove the existence of a compact non-orientable hyperbolic 4-manifold of volume and a compact orientable hyperbolic 4-manifold of volume , obtainable from torsion-free subgroups of small index in the Coxeter group . At the time of writing these are the smallest volumes of any known compact hyperbolic 4-manifolds.

     

Signature of relations in mapping class groups and non-holomorphic Lefschetz fibrations

We introduce the notion of signature for relations in mapping class groups and show that the signature of a Lefschetz fibration over the 2-sphere is the sum of the signatures for basic relations contained in its monodromy. Combining explicit calculations of the signature cocycle with a technique of substituting positive relations, we give some new examples of non-holomorphic Lefschetz fibrations of genus and which violate slope bounds for non-hyperelliptic fibrations on algebraic surfaces of general type.

     

The Lefschetz coincidence theorem in o-minimal expansions of fields

In this paper we prove the Lefschetz coincidence theorem in o-minimal expansions of fields using the o-minimal singular homology and cohomology.     

Construction of exotic smooth structures

In this article, we construct infinitely many simply connected, nonsymplectic and pairwise nondiffeomorphic 4-manifolds starting from the elliptic surfaces E(n) and applying the sequence of knot surgery, ordinary blowups and rational blowdown. We also compute the Seiberg-Witten invariants of these manifolds.     

Some Remarks on Almost and Stable Almost Complex Manifolds

In the first part we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a stable almost complex structure on a 10-manifold M with H₁(M;?) = 0 and no 2-torsion in H₁(M;?) for i = 2,3. Using the Classification Theorem of Donaldson we give a reformulation of the conditions for a 4-manifold to be almost complex in terms of Betti numbers and the dimension of the ±-eigenspaces of the intersection form. In the second part we give general conditions for an almost complex manifold to admit infinitely many almost complex structures and apply these to symplectic manifolds, to homogeneous spaces and to complete intersections.     

On decomposing monomial algebras with the Lefschetz properties

We introduce a general technique for decomposing monomial algebras which we use to study the Lefschetz properties. In particular, we prove that Gorenstein codimension three algebras arising from numerical semigroups have the strong Lefschetz property, and we give partial results on monomial almost complete intersections. We also study the reverse of the decomposition process – a gluing operation – which gives a way to construct monomial algebras with the Lefschetz properties.     

Isotopy invariants for smooth tori in 4-manifolds

In this paper we define invariants under smooth isotopy for certain two-dimensional knots using some refined Cerf theory. One of the invariants is the knot type of some classical knot generalizing the string number of closed braids. The other invariant is a generalization of the unique invariant of degree 1 for classical knots in 3-manifolds. Possibly, these invariants can be used to distinguish smooth embeddings of tori in some 4-manifolds but which are equivalent as topological embeddings.     

Finite-volume hyperbolic 4-manifolds that share a fundamental polyhedron

It is known that the volume function for hyperbolic manifolds of dimension 3 is finite-to-one. We show that the number of nonhomeomorphic hyperbolic 4-manifolds with the same volume can be made arbitrarily large. This is done by constructing a sequence of finite-sided finite-volume polyhedra with side-pairings that yield manifolds. In fact, we show that arbitrarily many nonhomeomorphic hyperbolic 4-manifolds may share a fundamental polyhedron. As a by-product of our examples, we also show in a constructive way that the set of volumes of hyperbolic 4-manifolds contains the set of even integral multiples of 4π²/3. This is “half” the set of possible values for volumes, which is the integral multiples of 4π²/3 due to the Gauss-Bonnet formula Vol(M) = 4π²/3 · χ(M).     

Classification of tight contact structures on small Seifert 3-manifolds with

We classify positive, tight contact structures on closed Seifert fibered 3-manifolds with base , three singular fibers and .