Sums of elliptic surfaces (Q1176351)

This paper is concerned with the behaviour of the diffeomorphism classes of simply connected algebraic surfaces, especially elliptic surfaces, under connected sums and related constructions. To state one of the author's main results, let us call a compact simply connected four- manifold trivial if it is diffeomorphic to either the connected sum of a number of \(P^ 2\)'s and a number of \(\overline P^ 2\)'s, or the connected sum of a number of K3-surfaces and a number of \(S^ 2\times S^ 2\)'s. Theorem: If \(V\) and \(W\) are any simply connected elliptic surfaces, then the connected sum of \(V\) and \(\overline W\) is trivial (the bar denoting reversed orientation). There is a similar theorem for the fibre sum of two elliptic surfaces, which is a 4-manifold with a singular-torus-fibration.