An adjunction criterion in almost-complex 4-manifolds

Abstract

The adjunction inequality is a key tool for bounding the genus of smoothly embedded surfaces in 4-manifolds. Using gauge-theoretic invariants, many versions of this inequality have been established for both closed surfaces and surfaces with boundary. However, these invariants generally require some global geometry, such as a symplectic structure or nonzero Seiberg-Witten invariants. In this paper, we extend previous work on trisections and the Thom conjecture to obtain adjunction information in a much larger class of smooth 4-manifolds. We intrdouce polyhedral decompositions of almost-complex 4-manifolds and give a criterion in terms of this decomposition for surfaces to satisfy the adjunction inequality.