Constructing infinitely many smooth structures on \(3\mathbb{CP}^2 \# n\overline{\mathbb{CP}}^2\) (Q1598157)

The main achievement of the paper is a construction of an infinite family of smooth symplectic non-decomposable structures on a topological 4-manifold of the form \(3\mathbb{C} \mathbb{P}^2\# n\overline {\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^2}\) for integers \(10\leq n\leq 13\), which generalizes earlier results of the author (non-decomposable means that the smooth manifold in question does not admit a smooth decomposition \(M\#N\), where both \(M\) and \(N\) are not smooth homotopy spheres). The main tools are Seiberg-Witten invariants and the rational blowing-down procedure of Fintushel and Stern. Here is a short sketch of the main construction of the paper. We start with a smooth symplectic 4-manifold \(X_n\) homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to \(2\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^2 \#n\overline {\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^2}\) (such a manifold was constructed in earlier papers of the author) and fix in it a smoothly imbedded 2-torus \(f\) with trivial normal bundle and 1-connected complement, which represents a non-torsion integral homology class \([f]\), such that \([f]\) can be represented by an immersed sphere \(\sigma\) having a unique positive double point (proving the existence of such an imbedded torus is the main technical difficulty of the construction). Next, using a blowing-up procedure (which starts with blowing up the self-intersection of \(\sigma)\) for any integer \(>1\), we build a new manifold, which is topologically \(X_n\# (p-1) \overline {\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}}^2\) and naturally contains as smooth submanifold a 4-manifold \(C_p\) (produced by the blowing-up procedure) the boundary of which is the lens space \(L(p^2,p-1)\). ``New'' 2-dimensional homology classes of the resulting 4-manifold \(X_n\# (p-1) \overline {\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}}^2\) (coming from the additional exemplars of \(\overline {\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}}^2)\) are represented by spheres contained in \(C_p\), thus the manifold \(X_n(p)\) obtained from \(X_n\#p \overline {\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}}^2\) by applying the rational blowing-down procedure of Fintushel and Stern (i.e. by deleting the interior of \(C_p\) and attaching a rational homology disc bounded by \(L(p^2,p-1))\) is homeomorphic to \(X_n\) by Freedman. Alternatively \(X_n(p)\) can be obtained by deleting an open tubular neighborhood of the torus \(f\) and attaching \(D^2\times T^2\) by a suitably chosen diffeomorphism (what is essential here, is the action of said diffeomorphism on the 2-dimensional homology group of \(S^1\times T^2\), and this is explicitly given by a matrix). Using this description of the manifolds \(X_n(p)\) and some earlier results of Fintushel and Stern the author computes the Seiberg-Witten invariant of them, which are different for different values of \(p\). An erratum has been published in ibid. 340, No. 4, 731--732 (2008).