Constructing Lefschetz fibrations via daisy substitutions (Q318149)

To a Lefschetz fibration over \(S^2\) one can associate a word in the mapping class group given by right-handed Dehn twists. Conversely, from such a word one can construct a Lefschetz fibration over \(S^2\). The authors construct a new family of nonhyperelliptic Lefschetz fibrations. These correspond to words in the mapping class group obtained by applying daisy substitutions to certain families of words. The authors construct an infinite family of pairwise nondiffeomorphic irreducible symplectic and nonsymplectic \(4\)-manifolds which are homeomorphic to \[ M(g,k):=(g^2-g+1)\mathbb{CP}^2\#(3g^2-g(k-3)+2k+3)\overline{\mathbb{CP}^2} \] for every \(g\geq 3\) and \(2\leq k\leq g+1\). This is done by computing the Seiberg-Witten invariants of a family \(Y(g,k)\) of Lefschetz fibrations as above and showing that they are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to \(M(g,k)\). The infinite family is then obtained by performing knot surgeries on \(Y(g,k)\).