Related papers: An obstruction to slicing iterated Bing doubles

Twisting a knot $K$ in $S^3$ along a disjoint unknot $c$ produces a twist family of knots $\{K_n\}$ indexed by the integers. Comparing the behaviors of the Seifert genus $g(K_n)$ and the slice genus $g_4(K_n)$ under twistings, we prove that…

A knot K in the 3-sphere is superslice if there is a slice disk D in the 4-ball such that the double of D along K is the unknotted 2-sphere S in $S^4$. Answering a question of Livingston-Meier, we find smoothly slice (in fact doubly slice)…

We consider the task of proving integer infeasibility of a bounded convex $K$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$ using a general branching proof system. In a general branching proof, one constructs a branching tree by adding an integer disjunction…

Let $\beta:=\sigma_1\sigma_2^{-1}$ be a braid in $B_3$, where $B_3$ is the braid group on 3 strings and $\sigma_1, \sigma_2$ are the standard Artin generators. We use Gauss diagram formulas to show that for each natural number $n$ not…

We prove that all knots with unknotting number at most 21 are smoothly slice in the K3 surface. We also prove a more general statement for 4-manifolds that contain a plumbing tree of spheres. Our strategy is based on a flexible method to…

The bipolar filtration introduced by T. Cochran, S. Harvey, and P. Horn is a framework for the study of smooth concordance of topologically slice knots and links. It is known that there are topologically slice 1-bipolar knots which are not…

This paper compares notions of double sliceness for links. The main result is to show that a large family of 2-component Montesinos links are not strongly doubly slice despite being weakly doubly slice and having doubly slice components.…

A knot in the three-sphere is doubly slice if it is the cross-section of an unknotted two-sphere in the four-sphere. For low-crossing knots, the most complete work to date gives a classification of doubly slice knots through 9 crossings. We…

We introduce the notion of slice depth of a 2-knot K, which is the minimal integer n such that K is n-slice. We give an upper bound for the slice depth of the n-twist spin of a classical knot which belongs to several specific classes,…

As a corollary of work of Ozsvath and Szabo [math.GT/0301149], it is shown that the classical concordance group of algebraically slice knots has an infinite cyclic summand and in particular is not a divisible group.

The doubly slice genus of a knot in the 3-sphere is the minimal genus among unknotted orientable surfaces in the 4-sphere for which the knot arises as a cross-section. We use the classical signature function of the knot to give a new lower…

We construct ribbon surfaces of Euler characteristic one for several infinite families of alternating 3-braid closures. We also use a twisted Alexander polynomial obstruction to conclude the classification of smoothly slice knots which are…

Let $ABC$ be an equilateral triangle. For certain triangles $T$ (the "tile") and certain $N$, it is possible to cut $ABC$ into $N$ copies of $T$. It is known that only certain shapes of $T$ are possible, but until now very little was known…

We derive a relative version of the slicing Bennequin inequalities for cobordant Legendrian knots, and review a few proofs of the result.

We prove that every embedding of $K_{2n+1,2n+1}$ into $\R^3$ contains a non-split link of $n$-components. Further, given an embedding of $K_{2n+1,2n+1}$ in $\R^3$, every edge of $K_{2n+1,2n+1}$ is contained in a non-split $n$-component link…

We show that for any nontrivial knot $K$ and any natural number $n$ there is a diagram $D$ of $K$ such that the unknotting number of $D$ is greater than or equal to $n$. It is well known that twice the unknotting number of $K$ is less than…

We show that, given any $n$ and $\alpha$, every embedding of any sufficiently large complete graph in $\mathbb{R}^3$ contains an oriented link with components $Q_1$, ..., $Q_n$ such that for every $i\not =j$, $|\lk(Q_i,Q_j)|\geq\alpha$ and…

For a graph $G$ on $[n]$, the $k$-cut complex $\Delta_k(G)$ has facets $[n]\setminus T$, where $T$ ranges over the disconnected $k$-vertex induced subgraphs of $G$. Bayer, Denker, Jeli\'c Milutinovi\'c, Sundaram, and Xue proved that the…

We use Lee's work on the Khovanov homology to define a knot invariant s. We show that s(K) is a concordance invariant and that it provides a lower bound for the slice genus of K. As a corollary, we give a purely combinatorial proof of the…

We study the equivariant concordance classes of two-bridge knots, providing an easy formula to compute their butterfly polynomial, and we give two different proofs that no two-bridge knot is equivariantly slice. Finally, we introduce a new…