The double n-space property for contractible n-manifolds

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Publication:1748434



Abstract: Motivated by a recent paper of Gabai on the Whitehead contractible 3-manifold, we investigate contractible manifolds Mn which decompose or split as Mn=AcupCB where A,B,CapproxmathbbRn or A,B,CapproxmathbbBn. Of particular interest to us is the case n=4. Our main results exhibit large collections of 4-manifolds that split in this manner.


Write \(A \cup_{C} B\) for the union of spaces along the common intersection \(C = A \cap B\). A manifold \(M\) splits if \(M \;= A \cup_{C} B\) with \( A,B,C \approx {\mathbb B}^{n}\) or \( A,B,C \approx {\mathbb R}^{n}\). In the first case one says that \(M\) splits into closed balls and in the second that it splits into open balls. The paper shows that there exist infinitely many topologically distinct splittable compact contractible \(4\)-manifolds. The manifolds are constructed in a manner similar to the Mazur manifolds where a 2-handle is attached to \(S^{1} \times {\mathbb B}^{3}\).











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