Gluck twisting 4-manifolds with odd intersection form

Abstract

We give a simple criterion when a Gluck twisting an odd smooth 4-manifold along a 2-sphere \(S\subset X\) does not change its diffeomorphism type. We obtain this by handlebody techniques and plug twisting operation, getting a slightly stronger version of the known fact that Gluck twisting of a 2-sphere \(S\subset X\) of a compact smooth 4-manifold with an odd spherical class, in the complement of S, does not change the diffeomorphism type of X. This is the best possible result on Gluck twisting manifolds with odd homology classes.