Connected sum at infinity and 4-manifolds

Abstract

We study connected sum at infinity on smooth, open manifolds. This operation requires a choice of proper ray in each manifold summand. In favorable circumstances, the connected sum at infinity operation is independent of ray choices. For each m at least 3, we construct an infinite family of pairs of m-manifolds on which the connected sum at infinity operation yields distinct manifolds for certain ray choices. We use cohomology algebras at infinity to distinguish these manifolds.

arXiv comment17 pages, 12 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Minimal genera of open 4-manifolds

Cited by in corpus (1)

• On uniqueness of end sums and 1-handles at infinity