arXiv subjects
Selman Akbulut
Publications and source records attributed to Selman Akbulut.
Brieskorn spheres bounding rational balls
Fintushel and Stern showed that the Brieskorn sphere $Σ(2,3,7)$ bounds a rational homology ball, while its non-trivial Rokhlin invariant obstructs it from bounding an integral homology ball. It is known that their argument can be modified to show that the figure-eight knot is rationally slice, and we use this fact to provide the first additional examples of Brieskorn spheres that bound rational homology balls but not integral homology balls: the families $Σ(2,4n+1,12n+5)$ and $Σ(3,3n+1,12n+5)$ for $n$ odd. We also provide handlebody diagrams for a rational homology ball containing a rationally slice disk for the figure-eight knot, as well as for a rational homology ball bounded by $Σ(2,3,7)$. These handle diagrams necessarily contain 3-handles.
Algebraic topology of $G_2$ manifolds
In this paper we give a survey of various results about the topology of oriented Grassmannian bundles related to the exceptional Lie group G_2. Some of these results are new. We give self-contained proofs here. One often encounters these spaces when studying submanifolds of manifolds with calibrated geometries. For the sake of completeness we decided to collect them here in a self-contained way to be easily accessible for future usage in calibrated geometry. As an application we deduce existence of certain special 3 and 4 dimensional submanifolds of G_2 manifolds with special properties, which appear in the first named author's work with S. Salur about G_2 dualities.
Contact 5-manifolds admitting open books with exotic pages
We construct a contact 5-manifold supported by infinitely many distinct open books with the identity monodromy and pairwise exotic Stein pages (i.e. pages are pairwise homeomorphic but non-diffeomorphic Stein fillings of a fixed contact 3-manifold), moreover we describe a process of generating infinitely many such examples. In contrast to this result, on each of $\#_{n} S^{2}\times S^{3}$ and $\#_{n} S^{2}\tilde{\times} S^{3}$ $(n\geq 2)$ we construct infinitely many open books with pairwise exotic Stein pages (and identity monodromy) supporting mutually distinct contact structures.
Harvey Lawson Manifolds and Dualities
The purpose of this paper is to introduce Harvey-Lawson manifolds and review the construction of certain mirror dual Calabi-Yau submanifolds inside a G_2 manifold. More specifically, given a Harvey-Lawson manifold HL, we explain how to assign a pair of tangent bundle valued 2 and 3-forms to a G_2 manifold (M,HL, φ, Λ), with the calibration 3-form φand an oriented 2-plane field Λ. These forms can then be used to define different complex and symplectic structures on certain 6-dimensional sub bundles of T(M). When these bundles are integrated they give mirror CY manifolds (related thru HL manifolds).
The Akhmedov-Park exotic CP^2 # 3(-CP^2)
Here we draw a handlebody picture for the exotic CP^2 # 3(-CP^2), constructed by Akhmedov and Park.
The Akhmedov-Park exotic CP^2 # 2(-CP^2)
Here we draw a handlebody picture for the exotic CP^2 # 2(-CP^2) constructed by Akhmedov and Park.
Absolutely exotic compact 4-manifolds
We show how to construct absolutely exotic smooth structures on compact 4-manifolds with boundary, including contractible manifolds. In particular, we prove that any compact smooth 4-manifold W with boundary that admits a relatively exotic structure contains a pair of codimension-zero submanifolds homotopy equivalent to W that are absolutely exotic copies of each other. In this context, {\em absolute} means that the exotic structure is not relative to a particular parameterization of the boundary. Our examples are constructed by modifying a relatively exotic manifold by adding an invertible homology cobordism along its boundary. Applying this technique to corks (contractible manifolds with a diffeomorphism of the boundary that does not extend to a diffeomorphism of the interior) gives examples of absolutely exotic smooth structures on contractible 4-manifolds.
An infinite order cork
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 n, as it approaches to infinity.
Cork twisting Schoenflies problem
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 complement of any smooth embedding S^3 into S^4 are pair of smooth balls. Here we suggest an approach to these problems by certain cork twisting operation on contractible manifolds, and demonstrate it on the example of the first Cappell-Shaneson homotopy sphere.
Isotoping 2-spheres in 4-manifolds
Here we discuss an example of topologically isotopic but smoothly non-isotopic pair of 2-spheres in a simply connected 4-manifold, which become smoothly isotopic after stabilizing by connected summing with S^2 x S^2.
Infinitely many small exotic Stein fillings
We show that there exist infinitely many simply connected compact Stein 4-manifolds with b_2=2 such that they are all homeomorhic but mutually non-diffeomorphic, and they are Stein fillings of the same contact 3-manifold on their boundaries. We also describe their handlebody pictures.
Gluck twisting 4-manifolds with odd intersection form
We give a simple criterion when a Gluck twisting an odd smooth 4-manifold along a 2-sphere $S\subset X$ does not change its diffeomorphism type. We obtain this by handlebody techniques and plug twisting operation, getting a slightly stronger version of the known fact that Gluck twisting of a 2-sphere $S\subset X$ of a compact smooth 4-manifold with an odd spherical class, in the complement of S, does not change the diffeomorphism type of X. This is the best possible result on Gluck twisting manifolds with odd homology classes.
A class of locally conformally flat 4-manifolds
We construct infinite families of non-simply connected locally conformally flat (LCF) 4-manifolds realizing rich topological types. These manifolds have strictly negative scalar curvature and the underlying topological 4-manifolds do not admit any Einstein metrics. Such 4-manifolds are of particular interest as examples of Bach-flat but non-Einstein spaces in the non-simply connected case. Besides that the underlying smooth manifolds are examples of spaces that admit open book decomposition in dimension 4.
Legendrian Realization in Convex Lefschetz Fibrations and Convex Stabilizations
In this paper, we study compact convex Lefschetz fibrations on compact convex symplectic manifolds (i.e., Liouville domains) of dimension $2n+2$ which are introduced by Seidel and later also studied by McLean. By a result of Akbulut-Arikan, the open book on $\partial W$, which we call \emph{convex open book}, induced by a compact convex Lefschetz fibration on $W$ carries the contact structure induced by the convex symplectic structure (i.e., Liouville structure) on $W$. Here we show that, up to a Liouville homotopy and a deformation of compact convex Lefschetz fibrations on $W$, any simply connected embedded Lagrangian submanifold of a page in a convex open book on $\partial W$ can be assumed to be Legendrian in $\partial W$ with the induced contact structure. This can be thought as the extension of Giroux's Legendrian realization (which holds for contact open books) for the case of convex open books. Moreover, a result of Akbulut-Arikan implies that there is a one-to-one correspondence between convex stabilizations of a convex open book and convex stabilizations of the corresponding compact convex Lefschetz fibration. We also show that the convex stabilization of a compact convex Lefschetz fibration on $W$ yields a compact convex Lefschetz fibration on a Liouville domain $W'$ which is exact symplectomorphic to a \emph{positive expansion} of $W$. In particular, with the induced structures $\partial W$ and $\partial W'$ are contactomorphic.
Stein 4-manifolds and corks
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 these corks can knot infinitely many different ways in a closed smooth manifold, by showing that cork twisting along them gives different exotic smooth structures. We also give an example of infinitely many disjoint embeddings of a fixed cork into a non-compact 4-manifold which produce infinitely many exotic smooth structures. Furthermore, we construct arbitrary many simply connected compact codimension zero submanifolds of S^4 which are mutually homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic.
Topology of multiple log transforms of 4-manifolds
Given a 4-manifold X and an imbedding of T^{2} x B^2 into X, we describe an algorithm X --> X_{p,q} for drawing the handlebody of the 4-manifold obtained from X by (p,q)-logarithmic transforms along the parallel tori. By using this algorithm, we obtain a simple handle picture of the Dolgachev surface E(1)_{p,q}, from that we deduce that the exotic copy E(1)_{p,q} # 5(-CP^2) of E(1) # 5(-CP^2) differs from the original one by a codimension zero simply connected Stein submanifold M_{p,q}, which are therefore examples of infinitely many Stein manifolds that are exotic copies of each other (rel boundaries). Furthermore, by a similar method we produce infinitely many simply connected Stein submanifolds Z_{p} of E(1)_{p,2} # 2(-CP^2)$ with the same boundary and the second Betti number 2, which are (absolutely) exotic copies of each other; this provides an alternative proof of a recent theorem of the author and Yasui [AY4]. Also, by using the description of S^2 x S^2 as a union of two cusps glued along their boundaries, and by using this algorithm, we show that multiple log transforms along the tori in these cusps do not change smooth structure of S^2 x S^2.
Cork twisting exotic Stein 4-manifolds
From any 4-dimensional oriented handlebody X without 3- and 4-handles and with b_2>0, we construct arbitrary many compact Stein 4-manifolds which are mutually homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to each other, so that their topological invariants (their fundamental groups, homology groups, boundary homology groups, and intersection forms) coincide with those of X. We also discuss the induced contact structures on their boundaries. Furthermore, for any smooth 4-manifold pair (Z,Y) such that the complement Z-intY is a handlebody without 3- and 4-handles and with b_2>0, we construct arbitrary many exotic embeddings of a compact 4-manifold Y' into Z, such that Y' has the same topological invariants as Y.