From any 4-dimensional oriented handlebody X without 3- and 4-handles and with b2  1, we construct arbitrary many compact Stein 4-manifolds that are mutually homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to each other, so that their topological invariants (their fundamental groups, homology groups, boundary homology groups, and intersection forms) coincide with those of X. We also discuss the induced contact structures on their boundaries. Furthermore, for any smooth 4-manifold pair (Z, Y ) such that the complement Z − int Y is a handlebody without 3- and 4-handles and with b2  1, we construct arbitrary many exotic embeddings of a compact 4-manifold Y 0 into Z, such that Y 0 has the same topological invariants as Y .

We show that, for all nonnegative integers k, Г, m and n, theYamabe invariant of #k(RP3)#Г(RP2 】 S1)#m(S2 】 S1)#n(S2. 】S1) is equal to the Yamabe invariant of RP3, provided k + Г ∶ 1. We then complete the classification (started by Bray and the second author) of all closed 3-manifolds with Yamabe invariant greater than that of RP3. More precisely, we show that such manifolds are either S3 or finite connected sums #m(S2 】 S1)#n(S2. 】S1),where S2. 】S1 is the nonorientable S2-bundle over S1. A key ingredient is Aubin’s Lemma [3], which says that if the Yamabe constant is positive, then it is strictly less than the Yam- abe constant of any of its non-trivial finite conformal coverings. This lemma, combined with inverse mean curvature flow and with analysis of the Green’s function for the conformal Laplacians on specific finite and normal infinite Riemannian coverings, will allow us to construct a family of nice test functions on the finite coverings and thus prove the desired result.

We prove global rigidity for compact hyperbolic and spherical cone-3-manifolds with cone-angles ≤ π (which are not Seifert fibered in the spherical case), furthermore for a class of hyperbolic cone-3-manifolds of finite volume with cone-angles ≤ π, possibly with boundary consisting of totally geodesic hyperbolic turnovers.To that end we first generalize the local rigidity result contained in [Wei] to the setting of hyperbolic cone-3-manifolds of finite volume as above. We then use the techniques developed in [BLP] to deform the cone-manifold structure to a complete non-singular or a geometric orbifold structure, where global rigidity holds due to Mostow-Prasad rigidity, cf. [Mos], [Pra], in the hyperbolic case,resp. [deR], cf. also [Rot], in the spherical case. This strategy has already been implemented successfully by [Koj] in the compact hyperbolic case if the singular locus is a link using HodgsonKerckhoff local rigidity, cf. [HK].

We study minimizers of the functionalwhere $B_{1}^{{\mathchoice {\raise .17ex\hbox {$\scriptstyle +$}} {\raise .17ex\hbox {$\scriptstyle +$}} {\raise .1ex\hbox {$\scriptscriptstyle +$}} {\scriptscriptstyle +}}}=\{x\in B_{1}: x_{1}>0\}$ ,$u$=0 on {$x$∈$B$_{1}:$x$_{1}=0}, $\lambda^{{\mathchoice {\raise .17ex\hbox {$\scriptstyle \pm $}} {\raise .17ex\hbox {$\scriptstyle \pm $}} {\raise .1ex\hbox {$\scriptscriptstyle \pm $}} {\scriptscriptstyle \pm }}}$ are two positive constants and 0<$p$<1. In two dimensions, we prove that the free boundary is a uniform$C$^{1}graph up to the flat part of the fixed boundary and also that two-phase points cannot occur on this part of the fixed boundary. Here, the free boundary refers to the union of the boundaries of the sets {$x$:±$u$($x$)>0}.

We introduce new finite-dimensional cohomologies on symplectic manifolds. Each exhibits Lefschetz decomposition and contains a unique harmonic representative within each class. Associated with each cohomology is a primitive cohomology defined purely on the space of primitive forms. We identify the dual currents of lagrangians and more generally coisotropic submanifolds with elements of a primitive cohomology, which dualizes to a homology on coisotropic chains.