Smooth structures on non-orientable $4$-manifolds via twisting operations

Abstract

Four observations compose the main results of this note. The first records the existence of a smoothly embedded 2-sphere $S$ inside $\mathbb{R}{P}^2\times S^2$ such that performing a Gluck twist on $S$ produces a manifold $Y$ that is homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the total space of the non-trivial 2-sphere bundle over the real projective plane $S(2{\hat{I}}^3\oplus \mathbb{R})$. The second observation is that there is a 5-dimensional cobordism with a single 2-handle between the 4-manifold $Y$ and a mapping torus that was used by Cappell-Shaneson to construct an exotic $\mathbb{R}{P}^4$. This construction of $Y$ is similar to the one of the Cappell-Shaneson homotopy 4-spheres. The third observation is that twisting an embedded real projective plane inside $Y$ produces a manifold that is homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the circle sum of two copies of $\mathbb{R}{P}^4$. Knotting phenomena of 2-spheres in non-orientable 4-manifolds that stands in glaring contrast with known phenomena in the orientable domain is pointed out in the fourth observation.

Added a result and incorporated the referee's suggestions. To appear in Bull. London Math. Soc