A note on the wick of the Casson handles (Q1408591)

The authors give the definition of the wick of a Casson handle and a geometric description of the wick of a simple Casson handle. A Casson handle is a special type of \(4\)-manifold. It has \(S^1\times B^2\) as a boundary, and an interior homeomorphic to \(\mathbb{R}^4\). The wick of the Casson handle is the image of \(S^1\times\{0\}\times [0,1)\) in the normal bundle to the boundary of the handle intersected with the interior of the handle. The wick provides an additional tool to visualize a Casson handle. The authors hope that this tool will eventually enable one to decide when a Casson handle is standard. Readers interested in this problem should also refer to \textit{Z. Bizaca} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 123, 1297-1302 (1995; Zbl 0845.57015)].