Symplectic \(4\)-manifolds on the Noether line and between the Noether and half Noether lines (Q2665239)

In the present paper, Sakallı gives new constructions of some minimal, simply-connected symplectic \(4\)-manifolds with one Seiberg-Witten basic class up to sign on the Noether line and between the Noether and half Noether lines, where the Noether and half Noether lines are defined by \(c_1^2=2\chi_h-6\) and \(c_1^2=\chi_h-3\), respectively, in the \((\chi_h,c_1^2)\)-plane. Each of the manifolds that Sakallı constructs here is an exotic copy of \(n{\mathbb CP}^2\#m\overline{\mathbb CP}^2\) for some integers \(n\) and \(m\), where \(n\geq 2\). While previous constructions of smooth \(4\)-manifolds with one Seiberg-Witten basic class up to sign have used knot surgery and blow-ups and rational blow-downs, Sakallı here uses the star surgery operation of \textit{Ç. Karakurt} and \textit{L. Starkston} [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 16, No. 3, 1585--1635 (2016; Zbl 1350.57033)]. In particular, starting from certain configurations of singular fibres and sections in the rational elliptic surface \(E(1)\) and taking fibre sums and then taking some symplectic resolutions and possibly some blow-ups, Sakallı identifies certain star shaped configurations of symplectic spheres that were considered by Karakurt and Starkston in the resulting symplectic manifolds. Sakallı's symplectic \(4\)-manifolds with one Seiberg-Witten basic class up to sign each are then given by cutting out regular neighbourhoods of these configuratons and gluing back in certain convex symplectic fillings with strictly smaller Euler characteristic. Using different realizations of the star shaped configurations of Karakurt and Starkston, Sakallı offers several different constructions of manifolds with the same topological and Seiberg-Witten invariants. It is currently unknown whether any of these are diffeomorphic to each other or, indeed, to any of the manifolds given by previous constructions.