Small exotic 4-manifolds from lines and quadrics in $\mathbb{CP}^{2}$

Abstract

We construct potentially new manifolds homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to $\mathbb{CP}^{2} \# 8 \overline{\mathbb{CP}^{2}}$ and $\mathbb{CP}^{2} \# 9 \overline{\mathbb{CP}^{2}}$ via rational blowdown surgery along certain $4$-valent plumbing graphs. This way all the graph classes from \cite{weighted} have a representative which admits a rational blowdown leading to an exotic manifold. We emphasize the simplicity of the constructions which boils down to finding a good configuration of complex lines and quadrics in $\mathbb{CP}^{2}$, and deciding which intersections to blow up.