Signatures of Lefschetz fibrations. (Q700640)

Let \(M\) be a compact, oriented smooth 4-manifold, and let \(B\) be a compact, oriented 2-manifold. A proper smooth map \(f: M\to B\) is a smooth Lefschetz fibration if there exist points \(b_1,\dots, b_m\in \text{interior}(B)\) such that (1) \(\{b_1,\dots, b_m\}\) are critical values of \(f\), with \(p_i\in f^{-1}(b_i)\) a unique critical point of \(f\), for each \(i\), and (2) about each \(b_i\) and \(p_i\), there are local complex coordinate charts agreeing with the orientations of \(M\) and \(B\) such that locally \(f\) can be expressed as \(f(z_1,z_2)= z^2_1+ z^2_2\). It is a consequence of the definition of a smooth Lefschetz fibration that \(f/f^{-1}(B-\{b_1,\dots, b_m\})\): \(f^{-1}(B- \{b_1,\dots, b_m\})\to B- \{b_1\dots, b_m\}\) is a smooth fiber bundle over \(B-\{b_1,\dots, b_m\}\) with fiber diffeomorphic to a closed oriented surface of genus \(g\). This is called the genus of the Lefschetz fibration. In this paper the author presents an algorithm to compute the signature of a smooth 4-manifold which admits an arbitrary Lefschetz fibration of any genus over \(D^2\) or \(S^2\). A Lefschetz fibration on a smooth 4-manifold \(M\) gives rise to handlebody description of \(M\), which is determined by a sequence of vanishing cycles. The author uses this handlebody description given by \textit{A. Kas} [Pac. J. Math. 89, 89--104 (1980; Zbl 0457.14011)] and \textit{C. T. C. Wall's} nonadditivity formula for signature [Invent. Math. 7, 269--274 (1969; Zbl 0176.21501)] to compute the signature of \(M\). It is the calculation of a `signature contribution' corresponding to each singular fiber of the given fibration on \(M\). As a corollary the author obtains that there is no hyperelliptic Lefschetz fibration over \(S^2\) with only reductible singular fibres. The author also proves that the signature of a smooth 4-manifold which admits a hyperelliptic Lefschetz fibration of genus \(g\leq 3\) over \(S^2\) is nonpositive. It is conjectured that this is true for all genus \(g\) Lefschetz fibrations over \(S^2\). The author mentions that after he proved and announced this result the general case (not assuming the hyperellipticity) was proved independently by \textit{T.-J. Li} [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2000, No. 18, 941--954 (2000; Zbl 0961.57022)], \textit{I. Smith} [Geom. Topol. 3, 211--233 (1999; Zbl 0929.53047)] and \textit{A. I. Stipsicz} [Math. Res. Lett. 6, No. 3--4, 449--456 (1999; Zbl 0955.57026)] all using a result of this paper.