The Seiberg-Witten equations and four-manifolds with boundary (Q1815215)

Let \(X\) be a smooth compact oriented 4-manifold. A result of \textit{S. K. Donaldson} [J. Differ. Geom. 18, 279-315 (1983; Zbl 0507.57010)] says that if \(X\) is closed and its integral intersection form \(\lambda_X: H_2 (X;\mathbb{Z})_{/ \text{torsion}} \times H_2 (X; \mathbb{Z})_{/ \text{torsion}} \to\mathbb{Z}\) is negative definite, then \(\lambda_X\) is isomorphic to the standard diagonal form \((-1) \oplus \cdots \oplus (-1)\). The author studies the problem of which negative definite forms can occur if \(X\) is allowed to have some fixed oriented rational homology sphere as boundary. Applying the Seiberg-Witten equations [see for instance \textit{E. Witten}, Math. Res. Lett. 1, No. 6, 769-796 (1994; Zbl 0867.57029)] the author proves the following finiteness result: Suppose that the boundary of \(X\) is a disjoint union of rational homology spheres: \(\partial X=Y_1\cup \cdots \cup Y_r\). If the intersection form \(\lambda_X\) is negative definite, then we have \(rk (\lambda_X)-|\xi |^2 \leq \sum^r_{i=1} \gamma (Y_i)\) for any characteristic vector \(\xi\in H_2 (X,\partial X)_{/ \text{torsion}}\) (i.e. \(\xi \cdot x\equiv x\cdot x\bmod 2\) for all \(x\in H_2 (X;\mathbb{Z})_{/ \text{torsion}})\). Here \(\gamma (\cdot) \in\mathbb{Q}\) is a certain invariant of oriented rational homology 3-spheres.