Locally flat 2-spheres in simply connected 4-manifolds (Q756785)

One consequence of the work of Donaldson and Freedman was that many unanswered questions concerning the locally flat embedding of spheres in 4-manifolds have been resolved. The authors of this paper prove the following theorems concerning the existence and uniqueness of embedded spheres. Let N be a closed, oriented, simply connected topological 4- manifold with Kirby-Siebenmann invariant \(KS(N)\in H^ 4(N;{\mathbb{Z}}_ 2)\). If \(x,y\in H_ 2(N)\), where y is primitive and \(x=dy\), \(d\in {\mathbb{Z}}\), \(d>0\), then d is called the divisibility of x. Theorem 1. Let \(x\in H_ 2(N)\) be a class of odd divisibility d. There exists a locally flat, simple embedding f: \(S^ 2\to N\) representing x if and only if: (i) \(KS(N)=(1/8)[\sigma (N)-x\cdot x] mod 2\) when x is characteristic, (ii) \(b_ 2(N)\geq \max_{0\leq j<d}| \sigma (N)- 2j(d-j)(1/d^ 2)x\cdot x|.\) Theorem 2. Let \(x\in H_ 2(N)\) be a class of odd divisibility d and if \(d>1\) assume that \(b_ 2(N)\neq 2\). If \(b_ 2(N)>\max_{0\leq j<d}| \sigma (N)-2j(d-j)(1/d^ 2)x\cdot x|,\) then any two locally flat, simple embeddings \(S^ 2\to N\) representing x are ambient isotopic. Corollary. Any two locally flat, simple embeddings \(S^ 2\to N\) representing a homology class of odd divisibility are ambient isotopic in N{\#}(S\({}^ 2\times S^ 2)\).