6533b839fe1ef96bd12a59b9

RESEARCH PRODUCT

4-Manifold topology I: Subexponential groups

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The technical lemma underlying the 5-dimensional topological s-cobordism conjecture and the 4-dimensional topological surgery conjecture is a purely smooth category statement about locating ~-null immersions of disks. These conjectures are theorems precisely for those fundamental groups ("good groups") where the ~l-null disk lemma (NDL) holds. We expand the class of known good groups to all groups of subexponential growth and those that can be formed from these by a finite number of application of two opera- tions: (1) extension and (2) direct limit. The finitely generated groups in this class are amenable and no amenable group is known to lie outside this class.