Horizontal decompositions, I
arXiv:2205.00482 · doi:10.2140/agt.2024.24.3503
Abstract
We show that every smooth, closed, orientable 4-manifold X admits a special kind of handlebody decomposition that we call horizontal. We classify the closed 4-manifolds with the simplest horizontal decompositions and we describe all such decompositions of CP^2, showing that they give rise to infinitely many of the known embeddings of rational homology balls in the complex projective plane.
21 pages, 7 figures, some changes, added Lemma 5.1 and alternative proof of Theorem 1.4 suggested by referee