Observations on Lickorish knotting of contractible 4-manifolds. (Q1880045)

In a 2003 paper, \textit{W. B. R. Lickorish} [Pac. J. Math 208, 283--290 (2003; Zbl 1052.57032)] gave a construction of knotted embeddings of a large family of contractible 4-manifolds in the 4-sphere \(S^4\). More precisely, for each finitely presented perfect group \(G\) with a balanced presentation, Lickorish constructed a compact contractible 4-manifold \(M_G\) with two embeddings into \(S^4\), one with a complement diffeomorphic to \(M_G\) and the other with a complement having fundamental group \(G\). In the paper under review, the author makes a series of observations about Lickorish's construction. The first observation is that for each such \(G\), it is possible to find infinitely many distinct (i.e. non-homeomorphic) \(M_G\)'s. These are obtained by forming iterated boundary connected sums of any given \(M_G\) with the well-known Mazur manifold [\textit{B. Mazur}, Ann. Math. (2) 73, 221--228 (1961; Zbl 0127.13604)]. Observation two is that any of the original \(M_G\)'s satisfying an additional technical condition (namely that \(G\) maps onto a nontrivial quotient of a 2-knot group) admits an infinite number of non-isotopic embeddings into \(S^4\). These embeddings are obtained by tying 2-knots into a 2-handle of the original embedding, and can be distinguished by the fundamental groups of their complement. Observation three is that there exist contractible manifolds built from a single 1-generator, 1-relation presentation of the trivial group with two embeddings into \(S^4\), one with a simply connected complement, and one whose complement has a nontrivial fundamental group. This observation is not new, and is cited within as due to \textit{J. Neuzil} [Topology 12, 411--415 (1973; Zbl 0271.57004)]. However, the author points out that when viewed as an instance of Lickorish's procedure, one obtains more control over the nontrivial complementary fundamental group. In particular, he observes that, among others, any group that is the fundamental group of a homology 3-sphere obtained by surgery on a knot is also the group of the complement of an embedding of a contractible 4-manifold with a single 1-handle into \(S^4\). The paper's final observation concerns again the Mazur manifold, which is viewed here as a kind of degenerate case of Observation three. Because of a symmetry in its customary presentation as a handlebody with a single 1-handle, it admits two embeddings into \(S^4\), each with a simply connected complement. (It is unknown if it admits an embedding into \(S^4\) with a nonsimply connected complement.) The author points out that these embeddings are non-isotopic, a result which follows from a deep result of \textit{S. Akbulut} [J. Differ. Geom. 33, 335--356 (1991; Zbl 0839.57015)]