Handle attachment

Attaching an index-$k$ handle to an $n$-dimensional manifold with boundary glues $D^k\times D^{n-k}$ along $\partial D^k\times D^{n-k}$. The complementary $D^k\times \partial D^{n-k}$ replaces the attaching region in the boundary.

A four-handle is an index-four handle. In a four-dimensional handle decomposition it is a four-ball attached along its whole boundary, a three-sphere. It caps a spherical boundary component left by earlier handle attachments.

An index-$\lambda$ handle in dimension $d$ is this product of disks, attached along $S^{\lambda -1}\times D^{d-\lambda }$. Its core disk is $D^{\lambda }\times \{0\}$, and its belt sphere is $\{0\}\times S^{d-\lambda -1}$. The complementary boundary piece is $D^{\lambda }\times S^{d-\lambda -1}$. Crossing a critical point in the Morse handle-attachment theorem produces precisely this local change.

A framed embedding of the left-hand region in an $m$-dimensional manifold specifies an index-$\lambda$ surgery. Remove its interior and glue the right-hand region along their common boundary $S^{\lambda -1}\times S^{m-\lambda }$. The cobordism realizing this change attaches an index-$\lambda$ handle of dimension $m+1$. On an oriented surface, index-two surgery cuts out an annular neighbourhood of a simple closed curve and caps its two boundary circles.

A zero-handle in an $n$-dimensional handle decomposition is $D^0\times D^n=D^n$. Its attaching region is empty, so it starts a connected component of the manifold. In dimension four it is a four-ball; adding one-handles and two-handles gives a four-dimensional handlebody with a two-dimensional CW spine.

The core disk of a $k$-handle attachment $D^k\times D^{n-k}$ is $D^k\times \{0\}$. Together with its cap in the preceding stage, it often represents a homology class; for a surgery trace, capped two-handle cores give the basis of its surgery linking matrix.

A handle decomposition builds an $n$-dimensional manifold by successively adjoining $D^h\times D^{n-h}$ along $S^{h-1}\times D^{n-h}$. The attaching data comprise an attaching sphere and its framing of an embedded sphere. Reading a decomposition backwards replaces index $h$ by index $n-h$ and interchanges its attaching spheres and belt spheres.

In a critical level handle embedding, the handles occur at distinct heights in an ambient product with the real line. Between consecutive heights, the boundary of the already attached handles travels through a product collar neighbourhood. At a handle height the horizontal slice contains the handle, attached to the incoming boundary along its attaching region. This separates the local topology changes from the intervening product regions.

Write each sphere as two disks, $S^2=D_{-}^2\cup D_{+}^2$. In their product, $D_{-}^2\times D_{-}^2$ is a zero-handle; $D_{+}^2\times D_{-}^2$ and $D_{-}^2\times D_{+}^2$ are two-handles. Their attaching circles are the core circles of the complementary solid tori in $\partial (D^2\times D^2)$, hence a Hopf link. Constant normal directions from the disk factors give both components the zero Seifert framing. The remaining $D_{+}^2\times D_{+}^2$ is a four-handle. This product construction establishes the actual diffeomorphism type, rather than relying on its intersection form alone. The resulting intersection matrix is $\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right)$.

Attach two one-handles to a four-dimensional zero-handle, then a two-handle along the commutator of their generators with the product zero framing. The result is $T^2\times D^2$. Its spine is the usual cell structure of the torus: one vertex, two one-cells, and a two-cell attached by $xy{x}^{-1}{y}^{-1}$. An embedded representative of its $H_2$ generator is obtained by taking a once-punctured torus carried by the two one-handles and capping its boundary by the core disk of the two-handle. It meets the relative co-core once and has self-intersection zero. The boundary is $T^3$, whose integral homology has ranks $1,3,3,1$.

A handle slide replaces the framed attaching sphere of one handle by a band sum with a parallel copy of another handle of the same index. It changes the attaching data while preserving the diffeomorphism type of the resulting manifold. On the handle incidence matrix it performs an elementary row operation, or a column operation when applied to the dual decomposition.

In the intermediate-index range, if an attaching sphere $A_1$ meets a belt sphere $B_1$ at exactly one transverse point, handle slides can remove the intersections of every other attaching sphere with $B_1$. The dual slides then remove the intersections of $A_1$ with the other belt spheres. Each move uses a band to the unique pivot sheet and a local isotopy removing the old and new intersections. If $m_{ji}=A_j\cdot B_i$ and $\delta =m_{11}=\pm 1$, the remaining incidence block is $m_{ji}-m_{j1}{m}_{1i}/\delta$, the Schur complement of the pivot. Extreme-index cases need separate hypotheses.

The belt sphere of an index-$h$ handle is $\{0\}\times S^{n-h-1}$ in the boundary after attachment. It is the attaching sphere of the dual index-$(n-h)$ handle. Its intersections with the attaching spheres of later handles detect passages through this handle.

The attaching sphere of an index-$h$ handle $D^h\times D^{n-h}$ is $S^{h-1}\times \{0\}$ in the previous boundary. Its framing of an embedded sphere identifies a neighbourhood with $S^{h-1}\times D^{n-h}$ and specifies the handle attachment.