Conjugation spaces and 4-manifolds (Q641880)

Let \(G\) be the group of order two. A conjugation space is a \(G\)-space \(X\) with the property that there is a ring isomorphism \[ \kappa :H^{2*}(X,\mathbb{Z}_2)\equiv H^*(X^G, \mathbb{Z}_2), \] where \(X^G\) denotes the the fix-point set under the involution. This structure was first discovered in [\textit{J.-C. Hausmann, T. Holm} and \textit{V. Puppe}, ``Conjugation spaces'', Algebr. Geom. Topol. 5, 923--964 (2005; Zbl 1081.55006)]. In this article the authors study the interaction between conjugation structures and the topology of smooth 4-manifolds. A conjugation 4-manifold is a smooth closed \(G\)-manifold \(X\) of dimension 4 which is a conjugation space; its fixed point set \(X^G\) is a closed connected surface embedded in \(X\). A \(\mathbb{Z}_2\)-knot is a smooth manifold pair \((M,\Sigma)\), where \(M\) is an oriented 4-dimensional \(\mathbb{Z}_2\)-homology sphere and \(\Sigma\) is a closed connected surface embedded in \(M\). The main theorem in the paper states: The correspondence \(X\rightarrow (X/G,X^G)\) defines a bijection between the orientation-preserving \(G\)-diffeomorphism classes of oriented connected conjugation 4-manifolds and the smooth equivalence classes of \(\mathbb{Z}_2\)-knots. The inverse of the bijection is given by taking a branched twofold covering of \(M\) over the knot. \textit{C. McA. Gordon} in [``On the higher-dimensional Smith conjecture'', Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., III. Ser. 29, 98--110 (1974; Zbl 0287.57019); ``Knots in the 4-sphere'', Comment. Math. Helv. 51, 585--596 (1976; Zbl 0346.55004)] and \textit{D. W. Sumners} in [``Smooth \(\mathbb Z_p\)-actions on spheres which leave knots pointwise fixed'', Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 205, 193--203 (1975; Zbl 0289.57020)] found infinitely many topologically distinct knots which are the fixed point set of smooth involutions. Using the above theorem, these examples provide infinitely many topologically inequivalent smooth conjugations on \(S^4\). The classical examples of conjugation 4-manifolds come from complex conjugations on \(S^2\times S^2\), with fixed point set \(S^1\times S^1\) and on \(\mathbb{C}P^2\) (or \(\overline{\mathbb{C}P^2}\)) with fixed point set \(\mathbb{R}P^2\). By taking connected sums along the along the fixed point sets, one can realize any closed surface as the fixed point set of a conjugation 4-manifold. If \(X\) is any simply-connected conjugation 4-manifold, the authors show that \(X/G\) is at least homeomorphic to \(S^4\) and that \(X\) is homeomorphic to a connected sum of copies of \(S^2\times S^2\), \(\mathbb{C}P^2\) and \(\overline{\mathbb{C}P^2}\).