Stabilisation, bordism and embedded spheres in \(4\)-manifolds (Q5960211)

Let \(X\) denote a closed, connected, and oriented smooth 4-manifold. A homology class \(\xi \in H_2(X,Z)\) is called characteristic if its mod 2 reduction is Poincaré dual to the second Stiefel-Whitney class. In [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 47, 1651-1657 (1961; Zbl 0107.40303)] \textit{M. A. Kervaire} and \textit{J. W. Milnor} showed that a necessary condition for a characteristic homology class to be represented by an embedded sphere is that \(\xi\cdot \xi \equiv \sigma(X) \bmod {16},\) where \(\sigma(X)\) is the signature. This condition is not sufficient, however. For example, \textit{V. A. Rokhlin} [Funct. Anal. Appl. 5, 39-48 (1971); translation from Funkts. Anal. Prilozh. 5, No. 1, 48-60 (1971; Zbl 0268.57019)] used the \(G\)-signature theorem to provide restrictions on the minimal genus of an embedded surface representing a given homology class. In particular, he showed that in \(H_2(CP^2,Z),\) the only classes \(n\gamma\) which are represented by an embedded sphere with \(\gamma\) a generator are when \(n = 1,2.\) More recently, gauge theory and Seiberg-Witten theory have been applied very successfully, with an initial triumph of Seiberg-Witten theory being the result of \textit{P. B. Kronheimer} and \textit{T. S. Mrowka} [Math. Res. Lett. 1, No. 6, 797-808 (1994; Zbl 0851.57023)] determining the minimal genus for each homology class in \(H_2(CP^2,Z).\) For a survey of the minimal genus problem, see the paper [Expo. Math 15, No. 5, 385-431 (1997; Zbl 0894.57013)] by the reviewer. Although the condition \(\xi \cdot \xi \equiv \sigma(X) \bmod {16}\) is not sufficient in general, \textit{M. Freedman} and \textit{R. Kirby} [Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 32, Part 2, 85-97 (1978; Zbl 0392.57018)] showed that it is sufficient stably in the simply connected case. This means that we can take sufficient connected sums with \(S^2 \times S^2\) to form \(X_k = X \# k(S^2 \times S^2)\) and represent \(\xi \in H_2(X_k) \subset H_2(X_k)\) by an embedded sphere when this congruence is satisfied. In this paper the result of Freedman and Kirby is generalized to the non-simply connected case. If a homology class is to be stably represented by an embedded sphere, then it must be in the image of \(\pi_2(X) \to H_2(X,Z):\) such classes are called spherical. The author proves: If \(X\) is a closed, connected and oriented smooth 4-manifold, then a characteristic spherical homology class \(\xi \in H_2(X,Z)\) can be stably represented by a smoothly embedded sphere iff \(\xi \cdot \xi \equiv \sigma(X) \bmod {16}.\) One difference between the problem in the simply connected case and the non-simply connected case is that if \(F \to M\) is an embedding of a closed oriented surface, then \(\pi_1(F) \to \pi_1(X) \) is automatically trivial for simply connected manifolds. In general, an embedding with \(\pi_1(F) \to \pi_1(X)\) trivial is called a \(\pi_1\)-null embedding, and one says that a homology class \(\xi \in H_x(X,Z)\) can be stably represented by a \(\pi_1\)-null embedding if there is, for some \(k \in N,\) a \(\pi_1\)-null embedding \(F \to X_k\) representing the class. A major step in proving the theorem above is the following result: A characteristic homology class of a closed, connected and oriented 4-manifold can be stably represented by a smooth \(\pi_1\)-null embedding iff it is spherical. This result is proved using \(Spin^c\)-bordism theory within the framework of B-structures and \textit{M. Kreck}'s stable diffeomorphism classification [Ann. Math. (2) 149, No. 3, 707-754 (1999; Zbl 0935.57039)]. The author also gives generalizations of these results to the locally flat topological case. In particular, he generalizes a result of \textit{R. Lee} and \textit{D. M. Wilczyński} [Comment. Math. Helv. 65, No. 3, 388-412 (1990; Zbl 0723.57015)] proved in the simply connected case to show: Let \(X\) be a topological 4-manifold and let \(\xi \in H_2(X,Z)\) be a spherical and characteristic homology class. Then \(\xi\) can be stably represented by a locally flat embedding of a 2-sphere iff \({1\over 8}(\xi\cdot \xi -\sigma(X)) \equiv ks(X) \bmod 2\) where \(ks(X) \in Z_2\) denotes the Kirby-Siebenmann smoothing obstruction.