Four-manifold realization of finitely presented groups

ID: four-manifold-realization-of-finitely-presented-groups

Every finitely presented group is the fundamental group of a closed connected smooth oriented four-manifold. Build a compact four-dimensional handle decomposition with one zero-handle, a one-handle for each generator of a group and a two-handle for each relator. Turning the handle decomposition upside down shows that its boundary surjects on the fundamental group. Its double of a manifold has the same fundamental group by the Seifert-van Kampen theorem.

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