Complex Ball Quotients and New Symplectic 4-manifolds with Nonnegative Signatures

Abstract: We present the various constructions of new symplectic $4$-manifolds with non-negative signatures using the complex surfaces on the BMY line $c_1^2 = 9\chi_h$, the Cartwright-Steger surfaces, the quotients of Hirzebruch's certain line-arrangement surfaces, along with the exotic symplectic $4$-manifolds constructed in \cite{AP2, AS}. In particular, our constructions yield to (i) an irreducible symplectic and infinitely many non-symplectic $4$-manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to $(2n-1)CP^{2}#(2n-1)\bar{CP}^{2}$ for each integer $n \geq 9$, (ii) the families of simply connected irreducible nonspin symplectic $4$-manifolds that have the smallest Euler characteristics among the all known simply connected $4$-manifolds with positive signatures and with more than one smooth structure. We also construct a complex surface with positive signature from the Hirzebruch's line-arrangement surfaces, which is a ball quotient.