Generic behavior of asymptotically holomorphic Lefschetz pencils

We prove that the vanishing spheres of the Lefschetz pencils constructed by Donaldson on symplectic manifolds of any dimension are conjugated under the action of the symplectomorphism group of the fiber. More precisely, a number of generalized Dehn twists may be used to conjugate those spheres. This implies the non-existence of homologically trivial vanishing spheres in these pencils. To develop the proof, we discuss some basic topological properties of the space of asymptotically holomorphic transverse sections.

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Published 1 January 2004