Minimal genera of open 4-manifolds (Q511606)

While the classification theory for smooth structures on a fixed topological manifold becomes trivial in dimensions three and below, and reduces to obstruction theory in dimensions five and higher, the \(4\)-dimensional theory is much more subtle and complicated. The Euclidean \(4\)-space \(\mathbb R^4\) has exotic smoothings, even though obstruction theory is trivial on contractible manifolds. It turns out that \(\mathbb R^4\) and many other open \(4\)-manifolds have uncountably many diffeomorphism types of smoothings, arising in continuous families unique to dimension four. The interesting question is whether every open \(4\)-manifold admits more than one, infinitely many, or uncountably many diffeomorphism types of smoothing. Two smooth structures on a fixed topological manifold \(X\) with boundary are isotopic if there is a diffeomorphism between them that is topologically ambiently isotopic to the identity. There is a canonical map from isotopy classes on \(X\) to those on \(X\times\mathbb R\). A stable isotopy class on a 4-manifold can be represented by many isotopy classes of smoothings, or by none at all. For smoothings on 4-manifolds, stable isotopy and diffeomorphism are independent relations. For any smooth 4-manifold \(X\), possibly with boundary, every homology class \(\alpha\in H_2(X)\) is represented by a smoothly embedded, closed, oriented surface \(F\). The genus \(g(F)\) of \(F\) can be changed by any positive integer. The genus function \(G:H_2(X)\to\mathbb Z^{\geq0}\) is the function assigning to each \(\alpha\) the smallest possible genus of a surface \(F\) representing \(\alpha\). The function \(\gamma:\mathbb Z^{\geq0}\to\mathbb Z^{\geq0}\cup\{\infty\}\) is called the genus-rank function of \(X\) or of its given smoothing. The integers \(g\) such that \(\gamma(g)\neq\gamma(g-1)\) are called the characteristic genera of \(X\), and the corresponding subgroups \(\Gamma_g\) are called the genus filtration of \(X\). In this paper, the author studies exotic smoothings of open \(4\)-manifolds using the minimal-genus function and its analog for end homology. While traditional techniques in open 4-manifold smoothing theory give no control of minimal genera, the author makes progress by using the adjunction inequality for Stein surfaces. The author proves that if a smooth, open 4-manifold admits a proper Morse function \(X\to(0,\infty)\) with indices at most 2, then (i)\,it admits an exotic smooth structure, (ii)\,it admits infinitely many diffeomorphism types of smoothings if \(H_2(X)\neq0\) or \(X\) is not a \(K(\pi,1)\), or (iii)\, it admits uncountably many if \(H_2(X)\) has infinite rank. Also, it is shown that if \(X\) is a connected topological 4-manifold, possibly with boundary, with some end collared by \(M\times\mathbb R\) for a closed, connected 3-manifold \(M\), \(X\setminus M\times(0,\infty)\) is compact with vanishing Kirby-Siebenmann invariant, \(\widetilde M\) denotes \(M\) if orientable or its orientable double cover, and \(H_2(\widetilde M)\neq0\), then \(X\) has infinitely many diffeomorphism types of smoothings. Furthermore, the author shows that if \(X\) admits a Morse function with indices at most 1, then \(X\) has infinitely many diffeomorphism types of smoothings, and if \(H_1(X)\) is not finitely generated, there are uncountably many. Finally, it is proven that for every domain of holomorphy \(U\), or a Stein open subset in \(\mathbb C^2\), the inclusion map is topologically isotopic to other embeddings, whose images are also domains of holomorphy and represent uncountably many diffeomorphism types of smoothings of \(U\), while having the same genus function.