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arXiv · 2505.23167

A cut-and-paste mechanism to introduce fundamental group and construct new four-manifolds

Valentina Bais·Rafael Torres
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Abstract

We introduce a simple cut-and-paste mechanism to construct both orientable and nonorientable four-manifolds from a given initial one. This mechanism alters the fundamental group while preserving other essential topological invariants. It avoids codimension two cut-and-paste fundamental group computations and fast tracks the search for fixed-point free involutions. The mechanism proves useful to unveil novel exotic irreducible smooth structures on closed four-manifolds with finite cyclic fundamental group, which include $\Q$-homology real projective four-spaces.

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Valentina Bais, Rafael Torres. 2026-02-26. A cut-and-paste mechanism to introduce fundamental group and construct new four-manifolds. https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.23167

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