Asymptotically quasiconformal four manifolds (Q431606)

S. K. Donaldson and D. P. Sullivan developed Yang-Mills gauge theory for quasiconformal 4-manifolds. As an application, they gave an example of a simply connected topological 4-manifold without a quasiconformal structure and an example of a pair of smooth closed oriented 4-manifolds which are homeomorphic but not quasiconformal to each other. The author investigates Yang-Mills theory for open smooth 4-manifolds \(M\) whose ends are homeomorphic to \(S^3 \times [0,\infty)\). Such manifolds always have a quasiconformal structure. The relations between smooth and topological structures on \(M\) from one side and quasiconformal structures from the other side are studied. The author introduces the notion of asymptotically quasiconformal homeomorphic manifolds and applies Yang-Mills theory to show the existence of homeomorphic but not asymptotically quasiconformal homeomorphic 4-manifolds.