Gompf connected sum for orbifolds and K-contact Smale–Barden manifolds

We develop the Gompf fiber connected sum operation for symplectic orbifolds. We use it to construct a symplectic 4-orbifold with b 1 = 0 {b_{1}=0} and containing symplectic surfaces of genus 1 and 2 that are disjoint and span the rational homology. This is used in turn to construct a K-contact Smale–Barden manifold with specified 2-homology that satisfies the known topological constraints with sharper estimates than the examples constructed previously. The manifold can be chosen spin or non-spin.

Upsilon Invariants from Cyclic Branched Covers

We extend the construction of Y-type invariants to null-homologous knots in rational homology three-spheres. By considering m-fold cyclic branched covers with m a prime power, this extension provides new knot concordance invariants of knots in S3. We give computations of some of these invariants for alternating knots and reprove independence results in the smooth concordance group.

ABELIAN CYCLES IN THE HOMOLOGY OF THE TORELLI GROUP

In the early 1980s, Johnson defined a homomorphism $\mathcal {I}_{g}^1\to \bigwedge ^3 H_1\left (S_{g},\mathbb {Z}\right )$ , where $\mathcal {I}_{g}^1$ is the Torelli group of a closed, connected, and oriented surface of genus g with a boundary component and $S_g$ is the corresponding surface without a boundary component. This is known as the Johnson homomorphism. We study the map induced by the Johnson homomorphism on rational homology groups and apply it to abelian cycles determined by disjoint bounding-pair maps, in order to compute a large quotient of $H_n\left (\mathcal {I}_{g}^1,\mathbb {Q}\right )$ in the stable range. This also implies an analogous result for the stable rational homology of the Torelli group $\mathcal {I}_{g,1}$ of a surface with a marked point instead of a boundary component. Further, we investigate how much of the image of this map is generated by images of such cycles and use this to prove that in the pointed case, they generate a proper subrepresentation of $H_n\left (\mathcal {I}_{g,1}\right )$ for $n\ge 2$ and g large enough.

Aspherical manifolds, Mellin transformation and a question of Bobadilla–Kollár

In their paper from 2012, Bobadilla and Kollár studied topological conditions which guarantee that a proper map of complex algebraic varieties is a topological or differentiable fibration. They also asked whether a certain finiteness property on the relative covering space can imply that a proper map is a fibration. In this paper, we answer positively the integral homology version of their question in the case of abelian varieties, and the rational homology version in the case of compact ball quotients. We also propose several conjectures in relation to the Singer–Hopf conjecture in the complex projective setting.

The Abel map for surface singularities III: Elliptic germs

The present note is part of a series of articles targeting the theory of Abel maps associated with complex normal surface singularities with rational homology sphere links (Nagy and Némethi in Math Annal 375(3):1427–1487, 2019; Nagy and Némethi in Adv Math 371:20, 2020; Nagy and Némethi in Pure Appl Math Q 16(4):1123–1146, 2020). Besides the general theory, by the study of specific families we wish to show the power of this new method. Indeed, using the general theory of Abel maps applied for elliptic singularities in this note we are able to prove several key properties for elliptic singularities (e.g. the statements of the next paragraph), which by ‘old’ techniques were not reachable. If $$({\widetilde{X}},E)\rightarrow (X,o)$$ ( X ~ , E ) → ( X , o ) is the resolution of a complex normal surface singularity and $$c_1:{\mathrm{Pic}}({\widetilde{X}})\rightarrow H^2({\widetilde{X}},{\mathbb {Z}})$$ c 1 : Pic ( X ~ ) → H 2 ( X ~ , Z ) is the Chern class map, then $${\mathrm{Pic}}^{l'}({\widetilde{X}}):= c_1^{-1}(l')$$ Pic l ′ ( X ~ ) : = c 1 - 1 ( l ′ ) has a (Brill–Noether type) stratification $$W_{l', k}:= \{{\mathcal {L}}\in {\mathrm{Pic}}^{l'}({\widetilde{X}})\,:\, h^1({\mathcal {L}})=k\}$$ W l ′ , k : = { L ∈ Pic l ′ ( X ~ ) : h 1 ( L ) = k } . In this note we determine it for elliptic singularities together with the stratification according to the cycle of fixed components. E.g., we show that the closure of any $$W(l',k)$$ W ( l ′ , k ) is an affine subspace. For elliptic singularities we also characterize the End Curve Condition and Weak End Curve Condition in terms of the Abel map, we provide several characterization of them, and finally we show that they are equivalent.

On the classification of Smale–Barden manifolds with Sasakian structures

Smale–Barden manifolds [Formula: see text] are classified by their second homology [Formula: see text] and the Barden invariant [Formula: see text]. It is an important and difficult question to decide when [Formula: see text] admits a Sasakian structure in terms of these data. In this work, we show methods of doing this. In particular, we realize all [Formula: see text] with [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] provided that [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] are pairwise coprime. We give a complete solution to the problem of the existence of Sasakian structures on rational homology spheres in the class of semi-regular Sasakian structures. Our method allows us to completely solve the following problem of Boyer and Galicki in the class of semi-regular Sasakian structures: determine which simply connected rational homology 5-spheres admit negative Sasakian structures.