Symplectic tori in rational elliptic surfaces (Q818567)

Let \(E(1)={\mathbb CP}^2\sharp9\overline{\mathbb CP}^{2}\) be the rational elliptic surface obtained by blowing up at nine base points of a generic pencil of cubic curves in \({\mathbb CP}^2\). Let \(E(1)_p\) denote the complex surface obtained by performing a logarithmic transformation of multiplicity \(p\) on a regular fiber of \(E(1)\). The authors' main result is the following theorem: For any integer \(p>1\), there exists an infinite family of pairwise non-istopic symplectic tori representing the primitive homology class \([f_p]\in H_2(E(1)_p)\), where \(f_p\) is the multiple fiber of \(E(1)_p\). As a corollary, we get infinitely many non-isotopic symplectic tori in the fiber classes of \(E(1)\) by the well-known diffeomorphism between \(E(1)\) and \(E(1)_p\) sending the homology class \([f]\) to \([f_p]\). These facts raise an existence problem of non-equivalent Kähler structures on \(E(1)\). In order to prove the main result, the authors show that \(E(1)_p\) is obtained up to diffeomorphism by a link surgery manifold \([E(1)\setminus\nu f]\cup[S^1\times(S^3\setminus\nu L)]\cup[T^2\times D^2]\) where \(L=(A, B)\) is the Hopf link and \(\nu\) denotes the tubular neighborhoods. Let \(C:=C_{m,p}\subset S^3\setminus\nu L\) be a closed curve with linking numbers \(lk(C, A)=m\) and \(lk(C, B)=1-mp\). It is shown that \(T_C:=C_{m,p}\subset[S^1\times(S^3\setminus\nu L)]\) is a symplectic submanifold of \(E(1)_p\), \([T_C]=[f_p]\) in \(H_2(E(1)_p)\) and the fiber sum \(\{E(1)_p\sharp_{T_c=f}E(1)\}_{m\geq1}\) is diffeomorphic to a link surgery manifold \(L_{m,p}\) for the link \((A, B, C)\). Then by using gluing formulas of the second author [Michigan Math. J. 50, 593-611 (2002; Zbl 1026.57026)] and of \textit{C. H. Taubes} [Geom. Topol. 5, 441-519 (2001; Zbl 1037.57026)], the authors compute the Seiberg-Witten invariant of the \(L_{m,p}\), which they use to prove that there is no self-diffeomorphism of \(E(1)_p\) that maps one element of the family of tori \(\{T_C\}_{m\geq1}\) to another.