Related papers: Meridional Almost Normal Surfaces in Knot Compleme…
Let $M$ be a non-compact hyperbolic $3$-manifold with finite volume and totally geodesic boundary components. By subdividing mixed ideal polyhedral decompositions of $M$, under some certain topological conditions, we prove that $M$ has an…
This article is concerned with locally flatly immersed surfaces in simply-connected $4$-manifolds where the complement of the surface has fundamental group $\mathbb{Z}$. Once the genus and number of double points are fixed, we classify such…
A bridge trisection of a smooth surface in $S^4$ is a decomposition analogous to a bridge splitting of a link in $S^3$. The Kirby-Thompson invariant of a bridge trisection measures its complexity in terms of distances between disc sets in…
A fixed knot $K$ acts via Murasugi sum on the space $\mathcal{S}$ of isotopy classes of knots. This operation endows $\mathcal{S}$ with a directed graph structure denoted by $M\kern-1pt SG(K)$. We show that any given family of knots in…
For the purposes of this paper, Dehn surgery along a curve K in a 3-manifold M with slope r is `exceptional' if the resulting 3-manifold M_K(r) is reducible or a solid torus, or the core of the surgery solid torus has finite order in the…
Any 2-bridge knot in the 3-sphere has a bridge sphere from which any other bridge surface can be obtained by stabilization, meridional stabilization, perturbation and proper isotopy.
Let c(K;F) denote the surface crossing number of a knot K with respect to a closed connected surface F in S^3. We relate c(K;F) to the tunnel number t(K) and to the Heegaard deficiency delta(F)=g(M_1;F)+g(M_2;F)-g(F), where S^3=M_1 union_F…
A knot K is called n-adjacent to another knot K', if K admits a projection containing n generalized crossings such that changing any 0 < m \leq n of them yields a projection of K'. We apply techniques from the theory of sutured 3-manifolds,…
For a compact, irreducible, $\partial$-irreducible, an-annular bounded 3-manifold $M\ne\mathbb{B}^3$, then any triangulation $\mathcal{T}$ of $M$ can be modified to an ideal triangulation $\mathcal{T}^*$ of $\stackrel{\circ}{M}$. We use the…
Two fundamental objects in knot theory are the minimal genus surface and the least area surface bounded by a knot in a 3-dimensional manifold. When the knot is embedded in a general 3-manifold, the problems of finding these surfaces were…
We show that every two-bridge knot $K$ of crossing number $N$ admits a polynomial parametrization $x=T_3(t), y = T_b(t), z =C(t)$ where $T_k(t)$ are the Chebyshev polynomials and $b+\deg C = 3N$. If $C (t)= T_c(t)$ is a Chebyshev…
We prove prove a bridge principle at infinity for area-minimizing surfaces in the hyperbolic space $\mathbb{H}^3$, and we use it to prove that any open, connected, orientable surface can be properly embedded in $\mathbb{H}^3$ as an…
There is empirical evidence supporting the claim that almost all cubic non-Hamiltonian graphs are bridge graphs. In this paper, we pose a related conjecture and prove that the original claim holds for non-3-connected graphs if the…
We give examples showing that Kidwell's inequality for the maximal degree of the Brandt-Lickorish-Millett-Ho polynomial is in general not sharp.
A Heegaard splitting of an open 3-manifold is the partition of the manifold into two non-compact handlebodies which intersect on their common boundary. This paper proves several non-compact analogues of theorems about compact Heegaard…
Let M be the interior of a compact 3-manifold with non-empty boundary, and T be an ideal (topological) triangulation of M. This paper describes necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of angle structures, semi-angle structures…
We show that 3-braid links with given (non-zero) Alexander or Jones polynomial are finitely many, and can be effectively determined. We classify among closed 3-braids strongly quasipositive and fibered ones, and show that 3-braid links have…
We show that any non-minimal bridge decomposition of a torus knot is stabilized and that $n$-bridge decompositions of a torus knot are unique for any integer $n$. This implies that a knot in a bridge position is a torus knot if and only if…
We show the existence of infinitely many knot exteriors where each of which contains meridional essential surfaces of any genus and (even) number of boundary components. That is, the compact surfaces that have a meridional essential…
Many well studied knots can be realized as positive braid knots where the braid word contains a positive full twist; we say that such knots are twist positive. Some important families of knots are twist positive, including torus knots,…