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Igor Belegradek
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Irreducible homology 3-spheres that bound smooth contractible manifolds

Some examples of irreducible homology 3-spheres that bound smooth contractible 4-manifolds are listed in the comment to problem 4.2 in Kirby's problem list, and all of them happen to occur among the Brieskorn spheres $\Sigma(p,q,r)$ modelled on $\widetilde{SL}_2(\mathbb R)$, i.e. such that $\frac{1}{p}+\frac{1}{q}+\frac{1}{r}<1$ (except for the standard $S^3$, of course).

Question. Are there any known homology 3-spheres that bound smooth contractible 4-manifolds and are modelled on other geometries, e.g. NIL or the hyperbolic space?

Igor Belegradek
  • 29.1k
  • 2
  • 80
  • 176