Symplectic normal connect sum (Q1338230)

This paper is concerned with construction methods for compact symplectic manifolds. Inspired by work of Gompf, who found an alternative to the basic constructions of Thurston and Gromov, the author introduces a method called the ``symplectic normal connected sum''. This construction generalizes the method of Gompf and allows to construct many examples of compact symplectic manifolds. Among the examples the construction provides an infinite family of compact symplectic 4-manifolds all with same Chern number but each with different fundamental group. In addition none of these manifolds can be Kähler.