Related papers: Man and machine thinking about the smooth 4-dimens…
Given a closed four-manifold $X$ with an indefinite intersection form, we consider smoothly embedded surfaces in $X \setminus $int$(B^4)$, with boundary a knot $K \subset S^3$. We give several methods to bound the genus of such surfaces in…
From classical knot theory we know that every knot in $S^3$ is the boundary of an oriented, embedded surface. A standard demonstration of this fact achieved by elementary technique comes from taking a regular projection of any knot and…
For any rational homology 3-sphere and one of its spin^{c}-structures, Ozsvath and Szabo defined a topological invariant, called d-invariant. Given a knot in the 3-sphere, the d-invariants associated with the prime-power-fold branched…
In this paper we study embeddings of oriented connected closed surfaces in $\mathbb S^3$. We define a complete invariant, the fundamental span, for such embeddings, generalizing the notion of the peripheral system of a knot group. From the…
Two 4-manifolds are stably diffeomorphic if they become diffeomorphic after connected sum with S^2 x S^2's. This paper shows that two closed, orientable, homotopy equivalent, smooth 4-manifolds are stably diffeomorphic, provided a certain…
This elementary article introduces easy-to-manage invariants of genus one knots in homology 3-spheres. To prove their invariance, we investigate properties of an invariant of 3-dimensional genus two homology handlebodies called the…
We show that the knot group of any knot in any integer homology sphere admits a non-abelian representation into $SU(3)$ such that meridians are mapped to matrices whose eigenvalues are the three distinct third roots of unity. This answers…
This paper studies locally linear involutions on S^4. Our main theorem shows that any such involution with a 1-dimensional fixed-point set is necessarily linear, provided the fixed-point set admits an equivariant tubular neighborhood. The…
The checkerboard coloring of knot diagrams offers a graph-theoretical approach to address topological questions. Champanerkar and Kofman defined a complex generated by the spanning trees of a graph obtained from the checkerboard coloring…
We define an invariant of transverse links in the standard contact 3-sphere as a distinguished element of the Khovanov homology of the link. The quantum grading of this invariant is the self-linking number of the link. For knots, this gives…
If a knot $K$ in $S^3$ admits a pair of truly cosmetic surgeries, we show that the surgery slopes are either $\pm 2$ or $\pm 1/q$ for some value of $q$ that is explicitly determined by the knot Floer homology of $K$. Moreover, in the former…
We show that Haefliger's differentiable (6,3)-knot bounds, in 6-space, a 4-manifold (a Seifert surface) of arbitrarily prescribed signature. This implies, according to our previous paper, that the Seifert surface has been prolonged in a…
We apply mapping class group techniques and trisections to study intersection forms of smooth 4-manifolds. Johnson defined a well-known homomorphism from the Torelli group of a compact surface. Morita later showed that every homology…
Akbulut has recently shown that an infinite family of Cappell-Shaneson homotopy 4-spheres is diffeomorphic to the standard 4-sphere. In the present paper, a strictly larger family is shown to be standard by a simpler method. This new…
In this article, we give new means of constructing and distinguishing closed exotic four-manifolds. Using Heegaard Floer homology, we define new closed four-manifold invariants that are distinct from the Seiberg--Witten and Bauer--Furuta…
Ng constructed an invariant of knots in ${\mathbb{R}}^3$, a combinatorial knot contact homology. Extending his study, we construct an invariant of surface-knots in ${\mathbb{R}}^4$ using diagrams in ${\mathbb{R}}^3$.
An obstruction theory for representing homotopy classes of surfaces in 4-manifolds by immersions with pairwise disjoint images is developed, using the theory of non-repeating Whitney towers. The accompanying higher-order intersection…
In this paper, we extend the definition of the $SL_2(\Bbb C)$ Casson invariant to arbitrary knots $K$ in integral homology 3-spheres and relate it to the $m$-degree of the $\widehat{A}$-polynomial of $K$. We prove a product formula for the…
We establish the existence of a pair of exotic surfaces in a punctured $K3$ which remains exotic after one external stabilization and have diffeomorphic complements. A key ingredient in the proof is a vanishing theorem of the family…
Meier and Zupan showed that every surface in the four-sphere admits a bridge trisection and can therefore be represented by three simple tangles. This raises the possibility of applying methods from link homology to knotted surfaces. We use…