Complements of connected hypersurfaces in $S^4$

Jonathan A. Hillman

Abstract

Let $X$ and $Y$ be the complementary regions of a closed hypersurface $M$ in $S^4=X{\cup }_{M}Y$. We use the Massey product structure in $H^{\ast }(M;\mathbb{Z})$ to limit the possibilities for $\chi (X)$ and $\chi (Y)$. We show also that if ${\pi }_1(X)\ne 1$ then it may be modified by a 2-knot satellite construction, while if $\chi (X)\le 1$ and ${\pi }_1(X)$ is abelian then ${\beta }_1(M)\le 4$ or ${\beta }_1(M)=6$. Finally we use TOP surgery to propose a characterization of the simplest embeddings of $F\times S^1$.

Keywords: embedding, Euler characteristic, lower central series, Massey product, satellite, Seifert manifold, surgery.

AMS Subject Classification: Primary 57N13.