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An index-$\lambda$ handle in dimension $d$ is $D^{\lambda }\times D^{d-\lambda }$. A handle attachment glues its attaching region $S^{\lambda -1}\times D^{d-\lambda }$ to a corresponding neighborhood in the boundary of the preceding manifold with boundary. Besides the embedding of the attaching sphere, one specifies a framing of an embedded sphere, namely the normal-disk directions used in this gluing. Corners are then smoothed.

In dimension four, a two-handle is $D^2\times D^2$ and attaches along $S^1\times D^2$. Its attaching circle is a knot in the boundary of the zero-handle $D^4$. Identify that boundary with $S^3$ and remove a point away from the circles to draw them in ${\mathbb{R}}^3$. Disjoint attaching circles give a framed link. Each integer records the twist of its normal framing relative to the zero Seifert framing; the integer is also the linking number of the circle and its framed push-off. The resulting boundary change is Dehn surgery on a framed link. This is the two-handle part of a Kirby diagram.

For $S^2\times S^2$, use the following explicit handle decomposition. Write each factor as two disks, $S^2=D_{-}^2\cup D_{+}^2$, glued along their boundary circles. The four product pieces giveThe first is a four-dimensional zero-handle after rounding its corners. Its boundary is the union of the solid tori $S^1\times D^2$ and $D^2\times S^1$. The two middle product pieces attach along these tori. Their attaching circles $S^1\times \{0\}$ and $\{0\}\times S^1$ form the standard Hopf link, with linking number one after choosing orientations.

Both framings are zero. For example, the normal disk of $S^1\times \{0\}$ is the second disk factor. Its constant normal push-off has linking number zero with the original circle: the circle bounds $D^2\times \{0\}$ in the four-ball, and a parallel push-off bounds a disjoint translated disk. Thus the framed self-intersection is zero; the same argument applies with the factors interchanged. These product framings are the zero Seifert framings.

After these two two-handles, the remaining product piece $D_{+}^2\times D_{+}^2$ is a four-ball. Its boundary is exactly the boundary of the assembled first three pieces, so it attaches as a four-handle. Equivalently, zero surgery on the Hopf link gives $S^3$, which this handle caps. We have therefore constructed the actual product, provingThere are no one- or three-handles. As a check, the two factor spheres have self-intersection zero and meet once, giving the intersection form $\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 1\\ 1& 0\end{array}\right)$. The explicit product construction, rather than the intersection form alone, identifies the smooth four-manifold. This is the zero-framed Hopf-link handle decomposition of the sphere product.

Use ordinary integer surgery coefficients, so the positive trace has intersection form $(n)$. Let ${\hat{F}}_0\subset K_0$ be the capped Seifert surface. Label the Spin-c structures byOn the trace $X_n:S^3\to K_n$, let ${\hat{F}}_n^2=n$ and label its structures ${\mathfrak{r}}_j$ by $⟨c_1({\mathfrak{r}}_j),[{\hat{F}}_n]⟩=2j-n$. Restriction identifies ${\mathfrak{t}}_k$ with $j\equiv k(\mathrm{mod}n)$. In these compatible labels the Integer-surgery exact triangle in Heegaard Floer homology isHere boldface denotes the U-adic completion of Heegaard Floer homology. Only finitely many zero-surgery structures contribute, by the genus bound on a capped Seifert surface, so the middle direct sum causes no difficulty. The infinite sums of trace maps do require completion. The printed minus notation should be understood in this completed sense; with the polynomial version, a sum over every extension need not even have values in $\mathbb{Z}[U]$. The plus version has the same ordering and needs no completion.

The two ordinary surgery traces give $A_k$ and $C_k$. For $X_0:S^3\to K_0$, $H^2(X_0)=\mathbb{Z}$, and its Spin-c structures ${\mathfrak{q}}_i$ have determinant evaluations $2i$ on the capped Seifert surface. Their restrictions are the unique structure on $S^3$ and ${\mathfrak{s}}_i$ on $K_0$. Thus the component of $A_k$ in the $i$th summand is $F_{X_0,{\mathfrak{q}}_i}^{-}$ for $i\equiv k$. For the orientation-reversed and turned-around trace $V_n:K_n\to S^3$, $H^2(V_n)=\mathbb{Z}$ and ${\hat{F}}_n^2=-n$. Its structures ${\mathfrak{r}}_j$ still have characteristic evaluations $2j-n$, restrict to ${\mathfrak{t}}_{j\mathrm{mod}n}$ on $K_n$ and to the unique structure on $S^3$, andCharacteristic parity explains the allowed evaluations; changing a structure by the generator of $H^2$ changes its evaluation by two, and the boundary restriction reduces the label modulo $n$.

For $n>1$, $B_k$ has an auxiliary lens-space input. More precisely, take the three-boundary surgery cobordism, or equivalently a two-ended cobordism $Z_n:K_0\#L_n\to K_n$, where $L_n$ is positive $n$-surgery on the unknot. Its incoming lens-space factor is fixed to the distinguished structure ${\mathfrak{u}}_0$ and its canonical top Floer generator ${\Theta }_{L_n}$. ThenThis describes the boundary restrictions exactly, including the boundary that must not be suppressed. A concrete Kirby diagram for $Z_n$ starts with the split incoming surgeries of coefficients $0$ and $n$, then attaches a zero-framed circle linking each incoming component once. Its full linking matrix is $\left(\begin{array}{ccc}0& 0& 1\\ 0& n& 1\\ 1& 1& 0\end{array}\right)$. Quotienting cohomology by the two incoming surgery columns gives $H^2(Z_n)=\mathbb{Z}\oplus \mathbb{Z}/n$. Accordingly its Spin-c structures may be labeled $(i,q)$ with incoming restrictions $({\mathfrak{s}}_i,{\mathfrak{u}}_q)$ and outgoing restriction ${\mathfrak{t}}_{i-q}$. In particular, fixing $q=0$ gives exactly one extension for each $i$, and its outgoing class is $i\mathrm{mod}n$. Thus $B_k$ is a Heegaard Floer cobordism map with the fixed auxiliary generator, rather than an unqualified map of a trace from $K_0$ to $K_n$. When $n=1$, $L_n=S^3$ and all three arrows become the familiar sums of ordinary two-ended Heegaard Floer cobordism maps.

Plumbing identifies a base disk times a fiber disk in one oriented rank-two disk bundle with such a neighborhood in another, exchanging base and fiber coordinates. Their zero sections then intersect transversely once. For disk bundles over $S^2$ arranged along a chain with Euler numbers $-a_i$, the intersection form has diagonal entries $-a_i$, adjacent entries one and other entries zero. The same manifold has a Kirby diagram consisting of adjacent Hopf-linked unknots with framings $-a_i$. Its boundary is described by the corresponding negative continued fraction, with the orientation fixed by the surgery convention.