Exotic 4-manifolds with small trisection genus

Abstract

We show that there exists an exotic pair of $4$-manifolds with boundary whose trisection genera are $4$. We also construct genus-$3$ relative trisections for an infinite family of contractible $4$-manifolds introduced by Akbulut and Kirby.

18 pages, 22 figures, exposition improved, figures added and modified, error in Figure 18 corrected, published in Topology and its Applications