A survey of the homology cobordism group

Abstract

In this survey, we present most recent highlights from the study of the homology cobordism group, with a particular emphasis on its long-standing and rich history in the context of smooth manifolds. Further, we list various results on its algebraic structure and discuss its crucial role in the development of low-dimensional topology. Also, we share a series of open problems about the behavior of homology $3$-spheres and the structure of $\Theta^3_\mathbb{Z}$. Finally, we briefly discuss the knot concordance group $\mathcal{C}$ and the rational homology cobordism group $\Theta^3_\mathbb{Q}$, focusing on their algebraic structures, relating them to $\Theta^3_\mathbb{Z}$, and highlighting several open problems. The appendix is a compilation of several constructions and presentations of homology $3$-spheres introduced by Brieskorn, Dehn, Gordon, Seifert, Siebenmann, and Waldhausen.