Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Thomas E. Mark

Publications and source records attributed to Thomas E. Mark.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2025

On Weinstein domains in symplectic manifolds

We prove that a Weinstein domain symplectically embedded in a closed symplectic manifold always admits symplectic hypersurfaces in its complement, possibly after a deformation. As a consequence, we obtain an obstruction for a closed 3-dimensional manifold to arise as the boundary of a Weinstein domain in a class of symplectic 4-manifolds that includes many symplectic rational surfaces. A particular application is that no Brieskorn homology sphere bounds a Weinstein domain symplectically embedded in a rational surface diffeomorphic to $S^2\times S^2$ or to ${\mathbb C} P^2\# k \overline{{\mathbb C}P}^2$, for any $k\leq 7$, despite the fact that many Brieskorn spheres bound Stein domains holomorphically embedded in these rational surfaces. Several families of Brieskorn spheres are obtained that do not bound a Weinstein domain in any 4-manifold with a ``positive'' symplectic structure. Such Weinstein domains do exist in certain positive symplectic rational surfaces when $k\geq 8$, though their topology is significantly constrained.

math.SG↗
arXiv2020

On contact type hypersurfaces in 4-space

We consider constraints on the topology of closed 3-manifolds that can arise as hypersurfaces of contact type in standard symplectic $R^4$. Using an obstruction derived from Heegaard Floer homology we prove that no Brieskorn homology sphere admits a contact type embedding in $R^4$, a result that has bearing on conjectures of Gompf and Koll\'ar. This implies in particular that no rationally convex domain in $C^2$ has boundary diffeomorphic to a Brieskorn sphere. We also give infinitely many examples of contact 3-manifolds that bound Stein domains but not symplectically convex ones; in particular we find Stein domains in $C^2$ that cannot be made Weinstein with respect to the ambient symplectic structure while preserving the contact structure on their boundaries.

math.GT↗
arXiv2019

Irreducible 3-manifolds that cannot be obtained by 0-surgery on a knot

We give two infinite families of examples of closed, orientable, irreducible 3-manifolds $M$ such that $b_1(M)=1$ and $π_1(M)$ has weight 1, but $M$ is not the result of Dehn surgery along a knot in the 3-sphere. This answers a question of Aschenbrenner, Friedl and Wilton, and provides the first examples of irreducible manifolds with $b_1=1$ that are known not to be surgery on a knot in the 3-sphere. One family consists of Seifert fibered 3-manifolds, while each member of the other family is not even homology cobordant to any Seifert fibered 3-manifold. None of our examples are homology cobordant to any manifold obtained by Dehn surgery along a knot in the 3-sphere.

math.GT↗
arXiv2019

Cylindrical contact homology of 3-dimensional Brieskorn manifolds

Cylindrical contact homology is a comparatively simple incarnation of symplectic field theory whose existence and invariance under suitable hypotheses was recently established by Hutchings and Nelson. We study this invariant for a general Brieskorn 3-manifold $Σ(a_1,\ldots, a_n)$, and give a complete description of the cylindrical contact homology for this 3-manifold equipped with its natural contact structure, for any $a_j$ satisfying $\frac{1}{a_1} + \cdots + \frac{1}{a_n} < n-2$.

math.SG↗
arXiv2019

Exotic Mazur manifolds and knot trace invariants

From a handlebody-theoretic perspective, the simplest compact, contractible 4-manifolds, other than the 4-ball, are Mazur manifolds. We produce the first pairs of Mazur manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic. Our diffeomorphism obstruction comes from our proof that the knot Floer homology concordance invariant $ν$ is an invariant of the smooth 4-manifold associated to a knot in the 3-sphere by attaching an n-framed 2-handle to the 4-ball along the knot. In contrast, we also show (modulo forthcoming work of Ozsváth and Szabó) that the concordance invariants $τ$ and $ε$ are not invariants of such 4-manifolds. As a corollary to the existence of exotic Mazur manifolds, we produce integer homology 3-spheres admitting two distinct $S^1 \times S^2$ surgeries, resolving a question from Problem 1.16 in Kirby's list.

math.GT↗
arXiv2018

Naturality of Heegaard Floer invariants under positive rational contact surgery

For a nullhomologous Legendrian knot in a closed contact 3-manifold Y we consider a contact structure obtained by positive rational contact surgery. We prove that in this situation the Heegaard Floer contact invariant of Y is mapped by a surgery cobordism to the contact invariant of the result of contact surgery. In addition we characterize the spin-c structure on the cobordism that induces the relevant map. As a consequence we determine necessary and sufficient conditions for the nonvanishing of the contact invariant after rational surgery when Y is the standard 3-sphere, generalizing previous results of Lisca-Stipsicz and Golla. In fact our methods allow direct calculation of the contact invariant in terms of the rational surgery mapping cone of Ozsváth and Szabó. The proof involves a construction called reducible open book surgery, which reduces in special cases to the capping-off construction studied by Baldwin.

math.GT↗
arXiv2017

Obstructing pseudoconvex embeddings and contractible Stein fillings for Brieskorn spheres

A conjecture due to Gompf asserts that no nontrivial Brieskorn homology sphere admits a pseudoconvex embedding in ${\mathbb C}^2$, with either orientation. A related question asks whether every compact contractible 4-manifold admits the structure of a Stein domain. We verify Gompf's conjecture, with one orientation, for a family of Brieskorn spheres of which some are known to admit a smooth embedding in ${\mathbb C}^2$. With the other orientation our methods do not resolve the question, but do give rise to an example of a contractible, boundary-irreducible 4-manifold that admits no Stein structure with either orientation, though its boundary has Stein fillings with both orientations.

math.GT↗
arXiv2017

On the Stein framing number of a knot

For an integer $n$, write $X_n(K)$ for the 4-manifold obtained by attaching a 2-handle to the 4-ball along the knot $K\subset S^3$ with framing $n$. It is known that if $n< \overline{\text{tb}}(K)$, then $X_n(K)$ admits the structure of a Stein domain, and moreover the adjunction inequality implies there is an upper bound on the value of $n$ such that $X_n(K)$ is Stein. We provide examples of knots $K$ and integers $n\geq \overline{\text{tb}}(K)$ for which $X_n(K)$ is Stein, answering an open question in the field. In fact, our family of examples shows that the largest framing such that the manifold $X_n(K)$ admits a Stein structure can be arbitrarily larger than $\overline{\text{tb}}(K)$. We also provide an upper bound on the Stein framings for $K$ that is typically stronger than that coming from the adjunction inequality.

math.GT↗
arXiv2015

Floer Homology and Fractional Dehn Twists

We establish a relationship between Heegaard Floer homology and the fractional Dehn twist coefficient of surface automorphisms. Specifically, we show that the rank of the Heegaard Floer homology of a 3-manifold bounds the absolute value of the fractional Dehn twist coefficient of the monodromy of any of its open book decompositions with connected binding. We prove this by showing that the rank of Floer homology gives bounds for the number of boundary parallel right or left Dehn twists necessary to add to a surface automorphism to guarantee that the associated contact manifold is tight or overtwisted, respectively. By examining branched double covers, we also show that the rank of the Khovanov homology of a link bounds the fractional Dehn twist coefficient of its odd-stranded braid representatives.

math.GT↗
arXiv2011

Convex plumbings and Lefschetz fibrations

We show that under appropriate hypotheses, a plumbing of symplectic surfaces in a symplectic 4-manifold admits strongly convex neighborhoods. Moreover the neighborhoods are Lefschetz fibered with an easily-described open book on the boundary supporting the induced contact structure. We point out some applications to cut-and-paste constructions of symplectic 4-manifolds.

math.SG↗
arXiv2010

Monodromy Substitutions and Rational Blowdowns

We introduce several new families of relations in the mapping class groups of planar surfaces, each equating two products of right-handed Dehn twists. The interest of these relations lies in their geometric interpretation in terms of rational blowdowns of 4-manifolds, specifically via monodromy substitution in Lefschetz fibrations. The simplest example is the lantern relation, already shown by the first author and Gurtas to correspond to rational blowdown along a -4 sphere; here we give relations that extend that result to realize the "generalized" rational blowdowns of Fintushel-Stern and Park by monodromy subsitution, as well as several of the families of rational blowdowns discovered by Stipsicz-Szabó-Wahl.

math.GT↗
arXiv2008

Triple products and cohomological invariants for closed three-manifolds

Motivated by conjectures in Heegaard Floer homology, we introduce an invariant HC(Y) of the cohomology ring of a closed 3-manifold Y whose behavior mimics that of the Heegaard Floer homology HF^\infty(Y,s) for s a torsion spin-c structure. We derive from this a numerical invariant h(Y), and obtain upper and lower bounds on h(Y). We describe the behavior of h(Y) under connected sum, and deduce some topological consequences. Examples show that the structure of HC(Y) can be surprisingly complicated, even for 3-manifolds with comparatively simple cohomology rings.

math.GT↗
arXiv2008

Knotted surfaces in 4-manifolds

Fintushel and Stern have proved that if S \subset X is a symplectic surface in a symplectic 4-manifold such that S has simply-connected complement and nonnegative self-intersection, then there are infinitely many topologically equivalent but smoothly distinct embedded surfaces homologous to S. Here we extend this result to include symplectic surfaces whose self-intersection is bounded below by 2-2g, where g is the genus of S. We make use of tools from Heegaard Floer theory, and include several results that may be of independent interest. Specifically we give an analogue for Ozsvath-Szabo invariants of the Fintushel-Stern knot surgery formula for Seiberg-Witten invariants, both for closed 4-manifolds and manifolds with boundary. This is based on a formula for the Ozsvath-Szabo invariants of the result of a logarithmic transformation, analogous to one obtained by Morgan-Mrowka-Szabó for Seiberg-Witten invariants, and the results on Ozsvath-Szabo invariants of fiber sums due to the author and Jabuka. In addition, we give a calculation of the twisted Heegaard Floer homology of circle bundles of "large" degree over Riemann surfaces.

math.GT↗
arXiv2008

On the Heegaard Floer homology of a surface times a circle

We make a detailed study of the Heegaard Floer homology of the product of a closed surface Sigma_g of genus g with S^1. We determine HF^+ for this 3-manifold completely for the spin^c structure having trivial first Chern class, which for g>2 was previously unknown. We show that in this case HF^\infty is closely related to the cohomology of the total space of a certain circle bundle over the Jacobian torus of Sigma_g, and furthermore that HF^+ of a surface times a circle with integral coefficients contains nontrivial 2-torsion whenever g>2. This is the first example known to the authors of torsion in Heegaard Floer homology with integral coefficients. Our methods also give new information on the action of H_1 of a surface times the circle on HF^+ of the same with spin^c-structures with nonzero first Chern class.

math.GT↗
arXiv2007

Product Formulae for Ozsvath-Szabo 4-manifold Invariants

We give formulae for the Ozsvath-Szabo invariants of 4-manifolds X obtained by fiber sum of two manifolds M_1, M_2 along surfaces S_1, S_2 having trivial normal bundle and genus g>0. The formulae follow from a general theorem on the Ozsvath-Szabo invariants of the result of gluing two 4-manifolds along a common boundary, which is phrased in terms of relative invariants of the pieces. These relative invariants take values in a version of Heegaard Floer homology with coefficients in modules over certain Novikov rings; the fiber sum formula follows from the theorem that this "perturbed" version of Heegaard Floer theory recovers the usual Ozsvath-Szabo invariants, when the 4-manifold in question has b^+>1. The construction allows an extension of the definition of the Ozsvath-Szabo invariants to 4-manifolds having b^+ = 1 depending on certain choices, in close analogy with Seiberg-Witten theory. The product formulae lead quickly to calculations of the Ozsvath-Szabo invariants of various 4-manifolds; in all cases the results are in accord with the conjectured equivalence between the Ozsvath-Szabo and Seiberg-Witten invariants.

math.GT↗