Low dimensional topology. Proceedings of the summer school, Budapest, Hungary, August 3--14, 1998 (Q1807983)

The articles of this volume will be reviewed individually. From the Introduction: This Proceedings contains the notes of five lecture series. The `Summer School on Low Dimensional Topology' consisted of four one-week lecture series, two in each of the two weeks. In chronological order these were: Differential topology of 4-dimensional manifolds, by \textit{John Morgan} (Columbia University); The link of surface singularities, by \textit{András Némethi} (Ohio State University); Nonpositively curved spaces, by \textit{Michael Davis} (Ohio State University); Geometry of 3-manifolds, by \textit{Walter D. Neumann} (University of Melbourne, Australia). The fifth lecture series: Some topological invariants of isolated hypersurface singularities, by \textit{András Némethi} was delivered at the EMS Summer Schools No. 1, Algebraic Geometry, held in 1996 in Eger (Hungary). This topic belongs in essence also to the realm of low dimensional topology and has connections with others of the four topics. In general, the notes are much more complete than the original lecture series, and each of them serves as a smooth and up-to-date introduction to its individual field. Some connections between the topics are also indicated. For example, some of the historical motivation for the study of non-positively curved spaces was in hyperbolic 3-manifolds and resolution of surface singularities links with JSJ decomposition of 3-manifolds. The following abstracts give some idea of the contents of each set of notes. John W. Morgan: Differential topology of 4-dimensional manifolds. Ideas originated from theoretical physics revolutionized the theory of smooth 4-manifolds. Initiated by Donaldson in the early `80s -- and followed by Seiberg and Witten in '94 -- smooth invariants of 4-manifolds have been found using equations arising naturally in gauge theories. This lecture series starts with a brief description of this fascinating relation between theoretical physics and manifold topology. After discussing the necessary differential geometry and algebra, the rigorous mathematical definition of the Seiberg-Witten invariants is given. The outline of the basic properties of these invariants is followed by the calculation of them for Kähler surfaces and the extension of these ideas to symplectic 4-manifolds. The lectures are supplemented by a brief introduction to supersymmetry, a set of problems corresponding to the theory described in the lectures, and with the material covered in the discussion sessions. Michael Davis: Notes on nonpositively curved polyhedra. Around 1986, in an influential paper, Gromov focused attention on those groups which arise as the fundamental groups of nonpositively curved, compact manifolds or metric spaces. Here the term ``nonpositively curved'' is used in the sense of Aleksandrov: it is defined by comparing distances on small triangles to distances on corresponding Euclidean triangles. The basic theory of nonpositively curved spaces is outlined in Chapter 1. One of the principal results, the Cartan-Hadamard Theorem (Theorem 1.5.2 in the notes), implies that any complete nonpositively curved space is aspherical, i.e., its universal cover is contractible. Another aspect of Gromov's paper was that he described many new techniques for constructing examples of nonpositively curved spaces, in particular, he gave many examples of nonpositively curved polyhedra. These notes focus on such polyhedral examples. Given a finite simplicial complex \(L\), we construct, in Chapter II, a finite cubical complex \(X_L\), such that the link of each vertex in \(X_L\) is \(L\). If \(L\) satisfies a simple combinatorial condition (that it is a ``flag complex''), then \(X_L\) is nonpositively curved. This construction is then applied to give various examples, such as closed aspherical manifolds the universal covers of which are not homeomorphic to Euclidean space. In Chapter III we discuss two other classes of polyhedral examples, the first coming from reflection groups and the second from the theory of convex hypersurfaces in Minkowski space. Some partial results on two well-known and closely related conjectures about aspherical manifolds are discussed in Chapter IV. The first is the Chern-Hopf conjecture: for any closed, aspherical, \(2n\)-dimensional manifold \(M^{2n}\), its Euler characteristic should satisfy \((-1)^n\chi(M^{2n})\geq 0\). The second is the Singer conjecture: the reduced \(L_2\)-homology of the universal cover of any closed aspherical manifold should vanish except, possibly, in the middle dimension. Walter D. Neumann: Geometry and 3-manifolds. The topology of manifolds in dimensions 2 and 3 is inseparable from geometry. For 2-manifolds this has been recognized for as long as they have been studied. For 3-manifolds it was a new insight when Thurston first proposed it just over two decades ago. The first chapter of these notes gives an overview of the role of geometry in the theory of manifolds (and orbifolds) in dimensions 2 and 3. For 3-manifolds the geometry enters via a canonical decomposition of such manifolds, first as connected sums, and then -- for manifolds indecomposable with respect to connected sum -- by decomposition along embedded tori and Klein bottles into the so-called ``geometric pieces.'' This decomposition is a variant of the so-called JSJ decomposition (after Jaco, Shalen, Johannsen). Chapter II, which is on the classical theory of 3-manifolds, includes a recent elementary proof of this decomposition. The geometric pieces have natural locally homogeneous geometric structures (in a few cases still only conjecturally). There are eight relevant geometries, seven of which belong to 3-manifolds which fiber over lower-dimensional manifolds or orbifolds, so classification problems can be reduced to lower dimensions. Chapter II also includes this classification. Although of considerable interest in their own right, among the richness of all 3-manifolds these fibered 3-manifolds play a limited rôle similar to that of sphere and torus in dimension 2. The eighth geometry, hyperbolic geometry, belongs to the vast majority of 3-manifolds and is what most of the course concentrated on. The hyperbolic structure on a 3-manifold is unique, so its properties are properties of the topological 3-manifold. These lead to number-theoretic invariants of 3-manifolds which are a powerful tool in understanding their geometry. To discuss this, Chapter III includes a brisk course in some aspects of algebraic number theory and arithmetic groups, a discussion of commensurability and its relationship with arithmeticity, and a history of the ``scissors congruence problem'' (Hilbert's 3rd problem), in addition to the discussion of the number-theoretic invariants of 3-manifolds and their applications to commensurability, scissors congruence, and arithmeticity. András Némethi: The link of surface singularities. The presentation is built around one guiding question: when it is possible to read the analytic invariants (geometric genus or the Hilbert-Samuel function itself) of the normal surface singularity from its topology. This topology is equivalent with the topology of the 3-dimensional manifold forming the link of the singularity. It is proved, for example, that the topology determines the analytic structure in the case of rational singularities. Most examples and exercises are based on the computation of the resolution graph of hypersurface suspension singularities. Since no accessible account of the algorithm is available, Appendix 1 gives a description of the method. András Némethi: Some topological invariants of isolated hypersurface singularities. The notes concentrate on some important properties of Brieskorn singularities, quasi-homogeneous singularities and some quotient singularities. Some historically crucial examples, like A'Campo's example for a singularity with non-finite monodromy, are discussed, as well as the realization of the Poincaré sphere, lens spaces or exotic spheres. In addition, the Casson invariant and some applications of the Dedekind sums are discussed. Indexed articles: \textit{Davis, M. W.; Moussong, G.}, Notes on nonpositively curved polyhedra, 11-94 [Zbl 0961.53022] \textit{Morgan, J. W.}, Smooth invariants of 4-manifolds, 95-189 [Zbl 0946.57022] \textit{Neumann, W. D.}, Notes on geometry and 3-manifolds, 191-267 [Zbl 0944.57012] \textit{Némethi, András}, Five lectures on normal surface singularities, 269-351 [Zbl 0958.32026] \textit{Némethi, A.}, Some topological invariants of isolated hypersurface singularities, 353-413 [Zbl 0958.32029]