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Questions tagged [surgery-theory]

In geometric topology, surgery theory is used to produce one finite-dimensional manifold from another in a 'controlled' way. Originally developed for differentiable (smooth) manifolds, surgery techniques also apply to piecewise linear and topological manifolds. Surgery refers to cutting out parts of the manifold and replacing it with a part of another manifold, matching up along the cut or boundary. This is related to handlebody decompositions.

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Kirby calculus and local moves

Every orientable 3-manifold can be obtained from the 3-sphere by doing surgery along a framed link. Kirby's theorem says that the surgery along two framed links gives homeomorphic manifolds if and ...
algori's user avatar
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25 votes
2 answers
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Proofs of Kirby's theorem

Each orientable 3-manifold can be obtained by doing surgery along a framed link in the 3-sphere. Kirby's theorem says that two framed links give homeomorphic manifolds if and only if they are obtained ...
algori's user avatar
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24 votes
1 answer
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Mapping class groups in high dimension

$\DeclareMathOperator\MCG{MCG}\DeclareMathOperator\Diff{Diff}\DeclareMathOperator\Homeo{Homeo}$Let $M$ be a $1$-connected, closed, smooth manifold with $\dim(M)>4$ and let us set $\MCG(M)=\pi_0(\...
David C's user avatar
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23 votes
2 answers
881 views

Vanishing of characteristic numbers vs vanishing of characteristic classes

A famous result by Thom states that Oriented Bordism classes are determined by characteristic numbers; specifically, two closed manifolds are orientedly bordant if and only if they have the same ...
William's user avatar
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23 votes
2 answers
851 views

Classification of fake (quaternionic, octonionic) projective spaces

If $X$ is a closed $n$-manifold, a fake $X$ is another closed manifold homotopy equivalent to $X$. There is some interest in classifying manifolds (up to, say, homeomorphism) homotopy equivalent to a ...
mme's user avatar
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18 votes
1 answer
565 views

A search for a sequence of $6$-manifolds

How to construct closed, orientable, smooth, simply-connected $6$-manifolds such that $H^{*}(M,\mathbb{Z}) \cong \mathbb{Z}[a]/(a^{4})$ (Where $a$ is a generator of degree 2) satisfying $p_{1}(M) = n ...
Nick L's user avatar
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17 votes
1 answer
612 views

Is there a notion of a chain complex with corners?

Roughly speaking, algebraic topology works by reducing questions about topological objects such as manifolds and cell to questions about chain complexes. On the topological side, although in the PL ...
Daniel Moskovich's user avatar
16 votes
2 answers
2k views

Smooth structures on the connected sum of a manifold with an Exotic sphere

What can we say about the connected sum of a manifold $M^n$ with an Exotic sphere? Is is possible some of them are still diffemorphic to $M^n$. Is it possible to classifying all the exotic smooth ...
Xiaolei Wu's user avatar
  • 1,598
13 votes
1 answer
812 views

Roadmap for L-Theory

Background: I spent sometime reading about algebraic K-theory and started reading research papers on the subject with relative facility at least I do understand constructions, statements of the ...
cellular's user avatar
  • 855
11 votes
2 answers
703 views

Do the results of (1/n)-surgery determine the link?...

Knowing the result of knot surgery is often not enough to determine the knot. Indeed, there are 3-manifolds admitting an infinite number of descriptions as surgery on a (1-component) knot in $S^3$. ...
Andrew Lobb's user avatar
11 votes
0 answers
237 views

Torus trick without surgery theory

It follows from surgery theory that in dimension $\geq 5$ every closed PL manifold homotopy equivalent to a torus has a finite cover which is PL homeomorphic to a torus. This is an important ...
user124543's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
544 views

Obtain 4-manifolds by repeating surgeries of submanifolds in $S^4$

In his paper QFT and Jones Polynomials, Witten states: "It is a not too deep result that every 3-manifold can be obtained from or reduced to $S^3$ (or any other desired 3-manifold) by repeated ...
miss-tery's user avatar
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10 votes
1 answer
559 views

Elements of infinite order in the topological mapping class group

Let $M$ be a closed topological manifold, and let $\operatorname{MCG}(M):=\operatorname{Homeo}(M)/\operatorname{Homeo}_0(M)$ denote the topological mapping class group of $M$ ($\operatorname{Homeo}_0(...
John Pardon's user avatar
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9 votes
2 answers
641 views

Künneth formulas/theorem for bordism groups and cobordisms?

We are familiar with Künneth theorem: The Kunneth formula is given by $R$ as a ring, $M,M'$ as the R-modules, $X,X'$ are some chain complex. The Kunneth formula shows the cohomology of a chain ...
wonderich's user avatar
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9 votes
2 answers
359 views

How to compute $[CP^2, G/PL]$?

Let $E^4$ be the two stage Postnikov space appearing in the homotopy type of the classifying space $G/PL$. One of its properties is that it only has two nontrivial homotopy groups $\pi_2(E)=Z/2Z$ and $...
Stanley Chang's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
305 views

Topological Spin manifolds in dimension 4

In his ICM Adress at Nice (Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians Nice, September, 1970, Gauthier-Villars, editeur, Paris 6 e ,1971, Volume 2, pp. 133-163.), Robion Kirby ...
Nicolas Boerger's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
257 views

Building examples of elements of $\Omega_4(\xi)$ via surgery theory: how to do it?

When computing special bordism groups, I often need to determine existence of (singular) smooth $4$-manifolds with fixed fundamental group and certain properties like the spin behaviour (i.e. being ...
Riccardo's user avatar
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8 votes
3 answers
1k views

motivation of surgery

an $n$-surgery on m dim manifold M is to cut out $S^n\times D^{m-n}$and replace it by $D^{n+1}\times S^{m-n-1}$. I want to know how this is invented? I do know that the effect of passing a critical ...
student's user avatar
  • 157
8 votes
3 answers
672 views

Any PL-homology-manifold is homotopy equivalent to a manifold

Is it true that any compact piecewise linear homology manifold is homotopically equivalent to a (smooth?) manifold of the same dimension? Let me say bit more since my question was wrongly understood. ...
ε-δ's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
679 views

topological type of smooth manifolds with prescribed homotopy type and pontryagin class

Can someone help explain the following result: If the dimension is at least five, there are at most finitely many different smooth manifolds with given homotopy type and Pontryagin classes. Thank ...
sara's user avatar
  • 179
8 votes
1 answer
528 views

Surgery along knots and connected sum

Denote $S^3_{p/q}(K)$ by performing $p/q$-surgery along a knot $K$ in $S^3$. Let $K$ and $J$ be two arbitrary oriented non-trivial knots in $S^3$. Is there a nice relation between surgery on the ...
Terry Black's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
474 views

Regarding the surgery construction in "A procedure for killing homotopy groups of differentiable manifolds" by Milnor

In the first section of "A procedure for killing homotopy groups of differentiable manifolds", Milnor gives the surgery construction as follows. Let $W$ be an $n=p+q+1$ dimensional manifold. ...
Luke McEvoy's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
151 views

Is the number of prime factors of 3-manifolds obtained by Dehn surgery along a link with $N$ components in $S^3$ bounded from above?

For a given $N$, is the number of prime factors of 3-manifolds obtained by Dehn surgery along a link with $N$ components in $S^3$ bounded from above? The Two Summands Conjecture states that surgery ...
Arshak Aivazian's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
445 views

Integer surgeries along links yielding lens spaces

Does there exist an integer $N$ such that any lens space $L(p,q)$ can be obtained by integer surgery from $S^3$ along a link $L$ with at most $N$ components? EDIT: I have worked out the comment by ...
Marc Kegel's user avatar
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7 votes
3 answers
628 views

Generalized Schoenflies - formalizing step in proof?

[Sorry if the level here is wrong, I asked this on math.SE, but even with a bounty, it got no attention.] I am currently reading Hatcher's 3-Manifolds notes, the part proving Alexander's theorem, ...
Hempelicious's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
249 views

Normal invariants

I am having a hard time finding examples of computations of normal invariants of surgery theory (or more generally the set of homotopy classes of maps $[X,G/O]$). Does anybody have good references?
Kafka91's user avatar
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7 votes
2 answers
534 views

Does there exist a Dehn filling of an irreducible 3-manifold with toroidal boundaries which is still irreducible?

Let $M$ be a compact, orientable, irreducible 3-manifold with incompressible toroidal boundary (there might be more than one boundary component). Is it always possible to choose appropriate slopes on ...
YC Su's user avatar
  • 605
7 votes
1 answer
862 views

What are these 3-manifolds from surgery?

I know that surgery on the unlink with +0 slope gives $S^2 \times S^1$ (where all the links above are embedded in $S^3$). I figured (I think) that surgery on the hopf link (with +0 on both) returns $S^...
QCD_IS_GOOD's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
355 views

Making diffeomorphism of submanifolds boring

This is probably very well known in surgery theory... I'm looking for a modern reference on the following questions (the only one I know is Browder's "Diffeomorphism of 1-connected manifolds"...
Nati's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
180 views

Partial converse to Novikov's conjecture

In Jim Davis's paper "Manifold aspects of the Novikov conjecture" (Surveys on surgery theory, vol 1, pages 195-224) he writes down (Theorem 6.5) a sort-of converse to the Novikov conjecture. He writes:...
Stanley Chang's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
287 views

Dehn surgery along primitive knot in 3-dimensional handlebody

I'm studying the article "An alternative proof of Lickorish–Wallace theorem" (doi link) and I got stuck in a problem. Let $H_g$ be a 3 dimensional handlebody of genus $g$, a primate curve in ...
Giacomo Bascapè's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
547 views

Examples of calculations of Turaev-Reshetikhin TQFT of cobordisms with boundaries have genera greater than 1

I am studying Turaev-Reshetikhin TQFT. I describe the definition of the invariant $\tau(M)$ of a cobordism $(M, \partial_{-}M, \partial_{+}M)$ in the previous question breifly. Framings in the ...
user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
170 views

Diffeomorphism type of the added sphere in simply connected surgery

A classical result of simply connected surgery theory, is that if two normal maps $f:M_i\rightarrow X$, $i=0,1$ are normally cobordant and if the dimension of the manifolds is odd, there exists a ...
Kafka91's user avatar
  • 93
6 votes
1 answer
472 views

4-manifold obtained from a ribbon disk exterior by attaching a 2-handle is simply-connected if its boundary is a homology sphere

I am reading Lemma 2.1 of this paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2012.12587.pdf) and I can't see why $W$ is simply-connected. Here is the situation: Let $K$ be a ribbon knot in $S^3$; it bounds a ribbon ...
user302934's user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
184 views

Visualize how the 5d Dold manifold and Wu manifold are cobordant via a 6d manifolds with boundaries

Are there simple intuitions and arguments to visualize why the following two 5-manifolds are cobordant to each other with the oriented structures? (They can be two boundaries of 6-dimensional oriented ...
wonderich's user avatar
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6 votes
0 answers
180 views

Cell structures of simply-connected 5-manifolds (classified by Barden's 1965 paper)

In Barden's 1965 paper: Simply-connected five manifolds, Barden gave a complete list of diffeomorphism classes of simply-connected 5-manifolds: $$X_{j,k_1,\dots,k_n}=X_j\#M_{k_1}\#\cdots\#M_{k_n}$$ ...
Borromean's user avatar
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6 votes
0 answers
133 views

What is the monoid of skew-symmetric trilinear forms on finite abelian groups?

I am interested in triple cup product operations on the cohomology ring $H^*(Y;\Bbb Z/p^r)$ of 3-manifolds. Trying to extract the algebra, I am led to the following question. Let's fix a prime power $...
mme's user avatar
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6 votes
0 answers
197 views

Regarding a proof in the surgery theorem by Gromov and Lawson

I have a question regarding a proof in the article The classification of simply connected manifolds of positive scalar curvature written by Gromov and Lawson. The precise reference is: Gromov, ...
user12390's user avatar
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6 votes
0 answers
88 views

Surgery on $M\times S^1$

I've encountered such a question and I don't know if it's trivial or not. Given a simply connected closed $n$-manifold $M$ ($n\geq 4$), $\pi_1(M\times S^1)\cong\mathbb{Z}$ and it can be killed by ...
Ivy's user avatar
  • 123
6 votes
0 answers
199 views

Surgering locally flat tori in 4-manifolds

Is there a locally flat torus in some not smoothable topological 4-manifold such that surgering on it produces a smoothable 4-manifold? Surgering means removing a tubular neighborhood and reattaching ...
Daniele Zuddas's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
522 views

Rational surgery and attaching $2$-handles

It is well-known fact that integral Dehn surgeries on $3$-sphere $S^3$ are viewed as the result on the boundary of attaching $2$-handles $B^2 \times B^2$ to the $4$-ball $B^4$. Is there an analogue ...
user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
329 views

Negative surgeries on negative knots

This question is two-fold. The first question is rather specific: what are some small examples of negative surgeries on negative knots that give rise to the same 3-manifold? I know one class of ...
Henry's user avatar
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5 votes
1 answer
173 views

Is spin cobordism an invariant for surgery of codimension $q\ge3$?

Recall that a surgery of codimension $q$ on an $n$-manifold $X$ is a modification of $X$ of the following type. Let $\Sigma^{n-q}\subset X$ be a smoothly embedded $(n-q)$-sphere with a trivialized ...
wonderich's user avatar
  • 10.5k
5 votes
1 answer
433 views

Dehn surgery on $S^3$ along a Hopf link with rational surgery coefficients

Is there an exhaustive list of conditions satisfied by rational surgery coefficients assigned to the components of the Hopf link in $S^3$ such that the resulting 3-manifold by Dehn surgery acting on $...
shashank markande's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
425 views

L-theory of additive category

Reading some articles in the field, I found the following statement: Proposition: Let $\mathcal{B}$ be an additive category and $\mathcal{A}$ a full additive subcategory of $\mathcal{B}$. If $\mathcal{...
cellular's user avatar
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5 votes
0 answers
184 views

L-theory periodicity

Let $\mathcal{A}$ be an additive category. I have two questions: Is there a conceptual explanation why $L(\mathcal{A})$ is 4-periodic, in the sense that $L_{i}(\mathcal{A})=L_{i+4}(\mathcal{A})$ for ...
cellular's user avatar
  • 855
5 votes
0 answers
77 views

Fiber product formulae for surgery obstructions

Is there a formula for the surgery obstruction of a fiber product of maps assuming the fiber product is also a homotopy equivalence? In more detail, suppose that $X \to Y$ and $Z \to Y$ are homotopy ...
Chris Woodward's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
350 views

Are there alternate descriptions of `elementary cobordisms'?

Let $M^d$, $N^d$ be cobordant $d$-manifolds. Then $M^d \sqcup \bar{N}^d = \partial W^{d+1}$ for some $(d+1)$-manifold $W$. This cobordism can be implemented via an elementary set of 'moves' called ...
Joe's user avatar
  • 545
4 votes
2 answers
360 views

Chirality and Anti-Chirality of links in 3 and in 5 dimensions

We know there is a chiral knot which is a knot that is not equivalent to its mirror image. It is well known in the mathematical field of knot theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiral_knot My ...
wonderich's user avatar
  • 10.5k
4 votes
1 answer
590 views

Manifolds whose diffeomorphism group has the homotopy type of a manifold itself

I have a very stupid question. Let $M$ be a closed smooth manifold. In particular cases the homotopy type of the diffeomorphism group $Diff(M)$ can be very pathological. For example, in the case of $M=...
Nikolay Konovalov's user avatar