Handlebody Construction of Stein Surfaces
| dc.creator | Gompf, Robert E. | |
| dc.date | 1998-03-06 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T05:24:00Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T05:24:00Z | |
| dc.description | The topology of Stein surfaces and contact 3-manifolds is studied by means of handle decompositions. A simple characterization of homeomorphism types of Stein surfaces is obtained --- they correspond to open handlebodies with all handles of index lessthan or = 2. An uncountable collection of exotic R^4's is shown to admit Stein structures. New invariants of contact 3-manifolds are produced, including a complete (and computable) set of invariants for determining the homotopy class of a 2-plane field on a 3-manifold. These invariants are applicable to Seiberg-Witten theory. Several families of oriented 3-manifolds are examined, namely the Seifert fibered spaces and all surgeries on various links in S^3, and in each case it is seen that ``most'' members of the family are the oriented boundaries of Stein surfaces. | |
| dc.description | 49 pp., AmSTeX, 53 eps figures. Ann. Math., to appear | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9803019 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/math/9803019 | |
| dc.identifier | Ann. Math. 148 (1998), 619-693. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/76671 | |
| dc.subject | Geometric Topology | |
| dc.subject | Complex Variables | |
| dc.subject | Differential Geometry | |
| dc.subject | Primary 57N13; Secondary 57M50, 57R65, 32C18 | |
| dc.title | Handlebody Construction of Stein Surfaces | |
| dc.type | text |