On $h$-cobordisms of complexity $2$

Abstract

We study $5$-dimensional $h$-cobordisms of Morgan-Szabó complexity $2$. We compute the monopole Floer homology and the action of the twisting involution of the protocork boundary associated with such $h$-cobordisms, obtaining an obstruction for $h$-cobordisms between exotic pairs to have minimal complexity. We construct the first examples of $h$-cobordisms of non-minimal, in fact, arbitrarily large, complexity between an exotic pair of closed, $1$-connected $4$-manifolds. Further applications include strong corks.

23 pages, 14 figures. In this version we work over Z/2 instead of Z thus removing the dependence on the HF knot surgery exact sequence over Z while keeping our original applications