A genus zero Lefschetz fibration on the Akbulut Cork (Q340740)

Every compact Stein surface admits a positive allowable Lefschetz fibration over \(D^2\) (PALF for short). The author constructs a genus zero PALF on the Akbulut cork and gives a description of its monodromy as a positive factorization in the mapping class group of the fiber. So far, only constructions for PALFs of higher genus were known for the Akbulut cork. In [\textit{S. Akbulut} and \textit{K. Yasui}, Comment. Math. Helv. 85, No. 3, 705--721 (2010; Zbl 1216.57016)] infinitely many exotic pairs of compact Stein surfaces where constructed such that one is a cork twist of the other along an Akbulut cork. The author constructs genus zero PALFs on an infinite family of these pairs such that for each pair the fibers agree. Furthermore, a description of the monodromy as a positive factorization is given. The proofs of the theorems use Kirby calculus, and a sequence of Kirby diagrams to follow the proof is included in the paper.