Gropes, Towers, and Skyscrapers

Abstract

Gropes, towers, and skyscrapers are carefully defined. These are the objects that the rest of Part II studies and seeks to construct. All three are 4-manifolds with boundary, obtained from stacking thickened surfaces on top of one another. Gropes are constructed from thickened orientable surfaces with positive genus, each stage attached to a symplectic basis of curves for the homology of the previous stage. Towers have an additional type of stage obtained from plumbed thickened discs. A skyscraper is the endpoint compactification of an infinite tower. An introduction to endpoint compactifications is included. The notion of a good group is also defined.