Abstract
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 < 2. An uncountable collection of exotic l4,'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 S3, and in each case it is seen that most members of the family are the
Submitted Version (
Free)
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call