Explicit concave fillings of contact three-manifolds

In this paper we give explicit, handle-by-handle constructions of concave symplectic fillings of all closed, oriented contact 3-manifolds. These constructions combine recent results of Giroux relating contact structures and open book decompositions of 3-manifolds, earlier results of the author on attaching 4-dimensional symplectic 2-handles along transverse links, and some tricks with mapping class groups of compact surfaces with non-empty boundary.Comment: 15 pages. Accepted for publication in the Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Current version is identical to final version submitted to the journal, differs from original version only in some notation and minor editorial change

Reconstructing 4-manifolds from Morse 2-functions

Given a Morse 2-function $f: X^4 \to S^2$, we give minimal conditions on the fold curves and fibers so that $X^4$ and $f$ can be reconstructed from a certain combinatorial diagram attached to $S^2$. Additional remarks are made in other dimensions.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures. Replaced because the main theorem in the original is false. The theorem has been corrected and counterexamples to the original statement are give

Constructing symplectic forms on 4-manifolds which vanish on circles

Given a smooth, closed, oriented 4-manifold X and alpha in H_2(X,Z) such that alpha.alpha > 0, a closed 2-form w is constructed, Poincare dual to alpha, which is symplectic on the complement of a finite set of unknotted circles. The number of circles, counted with sign, is given by d = (c_1(s)^2 -3sigma(X) -2chi(X))/4, where s is a certain spin^C structure naturally associated to w.Comment: Published by Geometry and Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTVol8/paper20.abs.htm

Truncated BFKL Series and Hadronic Collisions

A truncated BFKL series is studied and applied to hadronic processes. The proton-(anti)proton cross sections are described with good agreement with data and in a way consistent with the unitarity bound. The elastic scattering amplitude is calculated at momentum transfer $t$ different from zero, introducing two distinct ansatze for the proton impact factor. The elastic differential cross section is obtained at small $t$ approximation and compared with the data.Comment: 17pp, 6 figures, uses jhep.cls. Some text modifications, 2 figures added. Version to appear in Physical Review

Trisections of 4-manifolds with Boundary

Given a handle decomposition of a 4-manifold with boundary, and an open book decomposition of the boundary, we show how to produce a trisection diagram of a trisection of the 4-manifold inducing the given open book. We do this by making the original proof of the existence of relative trisections more explicit, in terms of handles. Furthermore, we extend this existence result to the case of 4-manifolds with multiple boundary components, and show how trisected 4-manifolds with multiple boundary components glue together.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figure

Indefinite Morse 2-functions; broken fibrations and generalizations

A Morse 2-function is a generic smooth map from a smooth manifold to a surface. In the absence of definite folds (in which case we say that the Morse 2-function is indefinite), these are natural generalizations of broken (Lefschetz) fibrations. We prove existence and uniqueness results for indefinite Morse 2-functions mapping to arbitrary compact, oriented surfaces. "Uniqueness" means there is a set of moves which are sufficient to go between two homotopic indefinite Morse 2-functions while remaining indefinite throughout. We extend the existence and uniqueness results to indefinite, Morse 2-functions with connected fibers.Comment: 74 pages, 41 figures; further errors corrected, some exposition added, other exposition improved, following referee's comment