Fukumoto-Furuta invariants of plumbed homology 3-spheres. (Q1858305)

Let \(\Theta^3\) denote the homology cobordism group of oriented homology 3-spheres. It is proved that any Seifert homology 3-sphere \(\Sigma(a_1,\ldots,a_n)\) for which the \(\overline\mu\)-invariant of Neumann and Siebenmann is nonzero has infinite order in \(\Theta^3\). This is accomplished by showing that the \(\overline\mu\)-invariant agrees up to sign with the \(w\)-invariant of Fukumoto and Furuta for a large class of plumbed homology spheres. Using similar methods, the author also obtains conditions under which the splice of two Seifert fibered homology spheres has infinite order in \(\Theta^3\).