Smooth s-Cobordisms of Elliptic 3-Manifolds

Abstract

The main result of this paper states that a symplectic s-cobordism of elliptic 3-manifolds is diffeomorphic to a product (assuming a canonical contact structure on the boundary). Based on this theorem, we conjecture that a smooth s-cobordism of elliptic 3-manifolds is smoothly a product if its universal cover is smoothly a product. We explain how the conjecture fits naturally into the program of Taubes of constructing symplectic structures on an oriented smooth 4-manifold with b⁺₂ ≥ 1 from generic self-dual harmonic forms. The paper also contains an auxiliary result of independent interest, which generalizes Taubes' theorem "SW ⇒ Gr" to the case of symplectic 4-orbifolds.