The imbedding problem of 3-manifolds into 4-manifolds (Q1112384)

This paper addresses the question of imbeddability of a closed 3-manifold M in a connected 4-manifold W. This question is further subdivided into the existence of ``type I'' or ``type II'' imbeddings, defined, respectively, by the condition that W-M be connected or disconnected. The criteria which are established as necessary for such imbeddings are inequalities involving homological information about W and ``\(\alpha\)- invariants'' of M, i.e. signature invariants defined from the intersection pairings of infinite cyclic coverings of cobounding 4- manifolds. In particular such an inequality is obtained for type II imbeddings and applied to find M which type I imbed in some W with 2nd Betti number one, but type II imbed in W only when the 2nd Betti number and signature of W are large. A necessary criterion for type I imbeddability is obtained by considering the more general problem of imbeddability of a punctured manifold \(M^ 0\) in W. By observing that such an imbedding induces a type II imbedding of the double \(DM^ 0\) in W, an inequality is obtained involving homological information of W and \(\alpha\)-invariants of \(DM^ 0\).