Related papers: Comparing 2-handle additions to a genus 2 boundary…

Given a $3$-manifold $M$ with multiple incompressible torus boundary components, we develop a general definition of order-detection of tuples of slopes on the boundary components of $M$. In parallel, we arrive at a general definition of…

We address primary decomposition conjectures for knot concordance groups, which predict direct sum decompositions into primary parts. We show that the smooth concordance group of topologically slice knots has a large subgroup for which the…

We introduce ribbon-moves of 2-knots, which are operations to make 2-knots into new 2-knots by local operations in B^4. (We do not assume the new knots is not equivalent to the old ones.) Let L_1 and L_2 be 2-links. Then the following hold.…

By considering negative surgeries on a knot $K$ in $S^3$, we derive a lower bound to the non-orientable slice genus $\gamma_4(K)$ in terms of the signature $\sigma(K)$ and the concordance invariants $V_i(\overline{K})$, which strengthens a…

We study petal diagrams of knots, which provide a method of describing knots in terms of permutations in a symmetric group $S_{2n+1}$. We define two classes of moves on such permutations, called trivial petal additions and crossing…

The ribbonlength of a link is a geometric invariant defined as the infimum of the ratio of the length to the width of a folded ribbon realization of the link. In this paper, we prove that if an alternating link admits an alternating diagram…

We classify 3-braid knots whose topological 4-genus coincides with their Seifert genus, using McCoy's twisting method and the Xu normal form. In addition, we give upper bounds for the topological 4-genus of positive and strongly…

We discuss an obstruction to a knot being smoothly slice that comes from minimum-genus bounds on smoothly embedded surfaces in definite 4-manifolds. As an example, we provide an alternate proof of the fact that the (2,1)-cable of the figure…

We solve a conjecture of Morgan and Szabo (Embedded genus 2 surfaces in four-manifolds, Preprint) about the relationship of the basic classes of two four-manifolds $X_i$ of simple type with $b_1=0$, $b^+>1$, such that there are embedded…

Whitehead doubles provide a plethora of examples of knots that are topologically slice but not smoothly slice. We discuss the problem of the Whitehead double of the Figure 8 knot and survey commonly used techniques to obstructing sliceness.…

We use twisted Alexander polynomials to show that certain algebraically slice 2-bridge knots are not topologically slice, even though all prime power Casson-Gordon signatures vanish. We also provide some computations indicating the efficacy…

An $n$-plat 1-knot is one isotopic to the plat closure of some $2n$-braid, which is also called an $n$-bridge 1-knot. Schubert classified 2-bridge 1-knots by considering their double branched covers which are homeomorphic to lens spaces. A…

We show that a 2-knot group discovered in the course of a census of 4-manifolds with small triangulations is an HNN extension with finite base and proper associated subgroups, and has the smallest base among such knot groups.

We show that the triple-crossing number of any knot is greater or equal to twice its (canonical) genus and we show an even stronger bound in the case of links. As an application we show that this bound is strong enough to obtain the…

We study positive braid knots (the knots in the three-sphere realized as positive braid closures) through the lens of the L-space conjecture. This conjecture predicts that if $K$ is a non-trivial positive braid knot, then for all $r <…

Templates are branched 2-manifolds with semi-flows used to model `chaotic' hyperbolic invariant sets of flows on 3-manifolds. Knotted orbits on a template correspond to those in the original flow. Birman and Williams conjectured that for…

We study 2-string free tangle decompositions of knots with tunnel number two. As an application, we construct infinitely many counter-examples to a conjecture in the literature stating that the tunnel number of the connected sum of prime…

This paper studies the question of whether minimal genus Heegaard splittings of exterior spaces of knots which are connected sums are weakly reducible or not. Furthermore it is shown that the Heegaard splittings of the knots used by…

In this paper, we develop a theory of bordered $\mathit{HF}^-$ using the link surgery formula of Manolescu and Ozsv\'{a}th. We interpret their link surgery complexes as type-$D$ modules over an associative algebra $\mathcal{K}$, which we…

A well-known conjecture in knot theory says that the percentage of hyperbolic knots amongst all of the prime knots of $n$ or fewer crossings approaches $100$ as $n$ approaches infinity. In this paper, it is proved that this conjecture…