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András I. Stipsicz

Publications and source records attributed to András I. Stipsicz.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Normal complex surface singularities with rational homology disk smoothings

We prove that a normal surface singularity whose minimal good resolution graph has at least two nodes does not admit a rational homology disk smoothing. Together with the earlier graph classifications and the analytic classifications of Fowler and Wahl, this gives a complete classification of normal surface singularities admitting rational homology disk smoothings and proves Wahl's conjecture. The same argument also proves Wahl's Rational Conjecture.

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arXiv2026

The real quotient of the Cartwright-Steger surface

Borisov and Yeung showed that the Cartwright-Steger surface $X$ is defined over ${\mathbb {Q}}$, hence complex conjugation gives an antiholomorphic involution on $X$. We show that the orbit space $Y$ is a closed oriented smooth four-manifold homeomorphic to ${\mathbb {CP}}^2\# (S^1 \times S^3)$, presenting $X$ as a double branched cover $X\to Y$, with branch locus diffeomorphic to the connected sum of three copies of the real projective plane.

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arXiv2026

Small Lefschetz fibrations on the BMY line

We give explicit positive factorizations for a genus-19 Lefschetz fibration over the torus and a family of genus-4 Lefschetz fibrations over a genus-2 surface. All these examples have only three nodes, and their total spaces are symplectic 4-manifolds of general type on the Bogomolov-Miyaoka-Yau line. In the course of deriving the monodromy relation in genus 19, we obtain several interesting identities, including a factorization of a Dehn twist into a product of three order-3 mapping classes. We show that the total space of this fibration is topologically s-cobordant to the Cartwright-Steger surface, and we determine its real quotient up to homeomorphism. The genus-4 family consists of variations of the Bauer-Catanese fibrations and contains 65 isomorphism classes of Lefschetz fibrations on 45 diffeomorphism types of compact complex ball quotients. We describe their topology and that of the real quotients of the three original surfaces. The handle monodromies in our main factorizations are pseudo-Anosov, and we show more generally that for holomorphic genus-4 Lefschetz fibrations on the BMY line, this holds for every choice of handle generators.

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arXiv2026

Irreducible exotic ${\mathbb {CP}}^2\# 7{\overline {\mathbb {C}} {\mathbb {P}} } ^2$'s with free involutions

We construct infinitely many pairwise non-diffeomorphic irreducible smooth four-manifolds homeomorphic to ${\mathbb {CP}}^2\# 7{\overline {\mathbb {C}} {\mathbb {P}} } ^2$, each admitting a free, orientation-preserving involution. Their quotients give infinitely many irreducible definite four-manifolds with fundamental group ${\mathbb {Z}}/2 {\mathbb {Z}}$ and $b_2=3$, filling the corresponding gap in the geography of such examples. The construction of infinitely many distinct examples relies on a novel equivariant torus surgery.

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arXiv2024

An exotic 5RP^2 in the 4-sphere

We show an example of an embedded copy of 5RP^2 in the four-sphere which is topologically standard but smoothly knotted, i.e. smoothly not isotopic to the standard embedding.

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arXiv2024

A note on surfaces in $\mathbb{CP}^2$ and $\mathbb{CP}^2\# \mathbb{CP}^2$

In this brief note, we investigate the $\mathbb{CP}^2$-genus of knots, i.e. the least genus of a smooth, compact, orientable surface in $\mathbb{CP}^2\setminus \mathring{B^4}$ bounded by a knot in $S^3$. We show that this quantity is unbounded, unlike its topological counterpart. We also investigate the $\mathbb{CP}^2$-genus of torus knots. We apply these results to improve the minimal genus bound for some homology classes in $\mathbb{CP}^2\# \mathbb{CP}^2$.

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arXiv2023

Definite four-manifolds with exotic smooth structures

In this paper we study smooth structures on closed oriented 4-manifolds with fundamental group Z_2 and definite intersection form. We construct infinitely many irreducible, smooth, oriented, closed, definite four-manifolds with fundamental group Z_2 and second Betti number 1 and 2. As an application, we prove that when the second Betti number of a definite four-manifold with fundamental group Z_2 is positive and it admits a smooth structure, then it admits infinitely many smooth structures.

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arXiv2020

Purely cosmetic surgeries and pretzel knots

We show that all pretzel knots satisfy the (purely) cosmetic surgery conjecture, i.e. Dehn surgeries with different slopes along a pretzel knot provide different oriented three-manifolds.

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arXiv2020

Branched covers bounding rational homology balls

Prime power fold cyclic branched covers along smoothly slice knots all bound rational homology balls. This phenomenon, however, does not characterize slice knots. In this paper, we give a new construction of non-slice knots that have the above property. The sliceness obstruction comes from computing twisted Alexander polynomials, and we introduce new techniques to simplify their calculation.

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arXiv2019

Hitchin Fibrations on Two-Dimensional Moduli Spaces of Irregular Higgs Bundles with One Singular Fiber

We analyze and completely describe the four cases when the Hitchin fibration on a $2$-dimensional moduli space of irregular Higgs bundles over $\mathbb{C}P^{1}$ has a single singular fiber. The case when the fiber at infinity is of type $I_0^*$ is further analyzed, and we give constructions of all the possible configurations of singular curves inelliptic fibrations having this type of singular fiber at infinity.

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arXiv2018

Hitchin fibrations on moduli of irregular Higgs bundles and motivic wall-crossing

In this paper we give a complete description of the Hitchin fibration on all 2-dimensional moduli spaces of rank 2 irregular Higgs bundles with two poles on the projective line. We describe the dependence of the singular fibers of the fibration on the eigenvalues of the Higgs fields, and describe the corresponding motivic wall-crossing phenomenon in the parameter space of parabolic weights.

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arXiv2018

Two-dimensional moduli spaces of irregular Higgs bundles

We give a complete description of the two-dimensional moduli spaces of stable Higgs bundles of rank 2 over complex projective line with one irregular singular point, having a regular leading-order term, and endowed with a generic compatible parabolic structure such that the parabolic degree of the Higgs bundle is 0. Our method relies on elliptic fibrations of the rational elliptic surface, an equivalence of categories between irregular Higgs bundles and some sheaves on a ruled surface, and an analysis of stability conditions.

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arXiv2015

The topology of Stein fillable manifolds in high dimensions II

We continue our study of contact structures on manifolds of dimension at least five using complex surgery theory. We show that in each dimension 2q+1 > 3 there are 'maximal' almost contact manifolds to which there is a Stein cobordism from any other (2q+1)-dimensional contact manifold. We show that the product M x S^2 admits a weakly fillable contact structure provided M admits a weak symplectic filling. We also study the connection between Stein fillability and connected sums: we give examples of almost contact manifolds for which the connected sum is Stein fillable, while the components are not. Concerning obstructions to Stein fillings, we show that the (8k-1)-dimensional sphere has an almost contact structure which is not Stein fillable once k > 1. As a consequence we deduce that any highly connected almost contact (8k-1)-manifold (with k > 1) admits an almost contact structure which is not Stein fillable. The proofs rely on a new number-theoretic result about Bernoulli numbers.

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arXiv2014

The topology of Stein fillable manifolds in high dimensions I

We give a bordism-theoretic characterisation of those closed almost contact (2q+1)-manifolds (with q > 2) which admit a Stein fillable contact structure. Our method is to apply Eliashberg's h-principle for Stein manifolds in the setting of Kreck's modified surgery. As an application, we show that any simply connected almost contact 7-manifold with torsion free second homotopy group is Stein fillable. We also discuss the Stein fillability of exotic spheres and examine subcritical Stein fillability.

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arXiv2014

Normal complex surface singularities with rational homology disk smoothings

In this paper we show that if the minimal good resolution graph of a normal surface singularity contains at least two nodes (i.e. vertex with valency at least 3) then the singularity does not admit a smoothing with Milnor fiber having rational homology equal to the rational homology of the 4-disk $D^4$ (called a rational homology disk smoothing). Combining with earlier results, this theorem then provides a complete classification of resolution graphs of normal surface singularities with a rational homology disk smoothing, verifying a conjecture of J. Wahl regarding such singularities. Indeed, together with a recent result of J. Fowler we get the complete list of normal surface singularities which admit rational homology disk smoothings.

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