Exponential separation in \(4\)-manifolds (Q1586952)

The author uses a new geometric construction, grope splitting, to give a sharp bound for separation of surfaces in 4-manifolds. His main geometric lemma states that if \((g^c,\gamma)\) is a capped grope in \(M^4,\) and \(\Sigma_1,\dots,\Sigma_n\) are surfaces in \(M\), disjoint from the body of \(g^c\) but perhaps intersecting its caps, then for a regular neighborhood \(N\) of \(g^c\) in \(M\), there is a capped grope \((g^c_{\text{split}},\gamma) \subset N\) such that each cap of \(G^c_{split}\) intersects at most one of the surfaces \(\Sigma\), and each body surface, above the first stage, of \(g^c_{split}\) has genus 1. Using this lemma, he proves the following theorem concerning exponential separation: Let \((g^c,\gamma)\) be a capped grope of height \(h,\) properly immersed in a 4-manifold \(M\), and let \(\Sigma_1,\dots, \Sigma_{2^h-1}\) be properly immersed surfaces in \(M\) which are pairwise disjoint, and are also disjoint from the body of \(g^c.\) Then, given a regular neighborhood \(N\) of \(g^c\) in \(M\), the collection of surfaces \(\{\Sigma_i\}\) is homotopic to \(\{\Sigma_i'\}\) with homotopy supported in \(N\) and \(N\) contains an immersed disk \(\Delta\) on \(\gamma\) such that all surfaces \(\Delta,\Sigma_1',\dots,\Sigma_{2^h-1}\) are pairwise disjoint. Moreover, the surfaces \(\{\Sigma_i\}\) stay pairwise disjoint during the homotopy. The bound \(2^h-1\) on the number of surfaces \(\Sigma\), for which the conclusion holds in general, is sharp. This result leads to a new proof of results of \textit{M. H. Freedman} and \textit{P. Teichner} [Invent. Math. 122, No. 3, 509-529 (1995; Zbl 0857.57017)] that are key ingredients of their result that classification techniques hold in the topological category for fundamental groups of subexponential growth. As an application of grope splitting, the author gives a new proof of the Grope Lemma [\textit{M. H. Freedman} and \textit{X.-S. Lin}, Topology 28, No. 1, 91-110 (1989; Zbl 0845.57016); the author with \textit{P. Teichner}, Geom. Topol. 1, 51-69 (1997; Zbl 0885.55001)] that two \(n\)-component links in \(S^3\) are link homotopic iff they cobound disjointly immersed annulus like gropes of class \(n\) in \(S^3 \times I.\) He also applies grope splitting to give a result on \(\pi_1\)-null immersions first proved by Freedman and Teichner (loc. cit.).