Compact 4-manifolds admitting special handle decompositions

Maria Rita Casali; Paola Cristofori

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arXiv · 2008.11485

Compact 4-manifolds admitting special handle decompositions

Maria Rita Casali·Paola Cristofori

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Abstract

In this paper we study colored triangulations of compact PL 4-manifolds with empty or connected boundary which induce handle decompositions lacking in 1-handles or in 1- and 3-handles, thus facing also the problem, posed by Kirby, of the existence of {\it special handlebody decompositions} for any simply-connected closed PL 4-manifold. In particular, we detect a class of compact simply-connected PL 4-manifolds with empty or connected boundary, which admit such decompositions and, therefore, can be represented by (undotted) framed links. Moreover, this class includes any compact simply-connected PL 4-manifold with empty or connected boundary having colored triangulations that minimize the combinatorially defined PL invariant {\em regular genus, gem-complexity} or {\em G-degree} among all such manifolds with the same second Betti number.

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Maria Rita Casali, Paola Cristofori. 2020-08-26. Compact 4-manifolds admitting special handle decompositions. https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.11485

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