Related papers: The Unknotting Problem and Normal Surface Q-Theory

The disk complex of a surface in a 3-manifold is used to define its {\it topological index}. Surfaces with well-defined topological index are shown to generalize well-known classes, such as incompressible, strongly irreducible, and critical…

We give a generalization of Thurston's Bounded Image Theorem for skinning maps, which applies to pared 3-manifolds with incompressible boundary that are not necessarily acylindrical. Along the way we study properties of divergent sequences…

Suppose that $M$ is a compact, connected three-manifold with boundary. We show that if the universal cover has infinitely many boundary components then $M$ has an ideal triangulation which is essential: no edge can be homotoped into the…

We generalize a theorem of Finkelstein and Moriah and show that if a link $L$ has a $2n$-plat projection satisfying certain conditions, then its complement contains some closed essential surfaces. In most cases these surfaces remain…

It is shown that given any link-manifold, there is an algorithm to decide if the manifold contains an embedded, essential planar surface; if it does, the algorithm will construct one. If a slope on the boundary of the link-manifold is…

We show that a strongly irreducible and boundary-strongly irreducible surface can be isotoped to be almost normal in a triangulated 3-manifold.

We find conditions under which a non-orientable closed surface S embedded into an orientable closed 4-manifold X can be represented by a connected sum of an embedded closed surface in X and an unknotted projective plane in a 4-sphere. This…

Given an injective amalgam at the level of fundamental groups and a specific 3-manifold, is there a corresponding geometric-topological decomposition of a given 4-manifold, in a stable sense? We find an algebraic-topological splitting…

In this thesis, we use normal surface theory to understand certain properties of minimal triangulations of compact orientable 3-manifolds. We describe the collapsing process of normal 2-spheres and disks. Using some geometrical…

In this paper, we consider a closed Riemannian manifold $M^{n+1}$ with dimension $3\leq n+1\leq 7$, and a compact Lie group $G$ acting as isometries on $M$ with cohomogeneity at least $3$. After adapting the Almgren-Pitts min-max theory to…

We define a 2-normal surface to be one which intersects every 3-simplex of a triangulated 3-manifold in normal triangles and quadrilaterals, with one or two exceptions. The possible exceptions are a pair of octagons, a pair of unknotted…

Let M be a (possibly non-orientable) compact 3-manifold with (possibly empty) boundary consisting of tori and Klein bottles. Let $X\subset\partial M$ be a trivalent graph such that $\partial M\setminus X$ is a union of one disc for each…

The existence of essential closed surfaces surfaces is proven for finite coverings of 3-manifolds that are triangulated by finitely many topological ideal tetrahedra and admit a regular, negatively curved, ideal structure.

M-theory suggests the study of 11-dimensional space-times compactified on some 7-manifolds. From its intimate relation to superstrings, one possible class of such 7-manifolds are those that have Calabi-Yau threefolds as boundary. In this…

In this article we prove that any unitary, axiomatic topological quantum field theory in four-dimensions can not detect changes in the smooth structure of M, a simply connected, closed (compact without boundary), oriented smooth manifold.…

We study N=1 field theories with a U(1)_R symmetry on compact four-manifolds M. Supersymmetry requires M to be a complex manifold. The supersymmetric theory on M can be described in terms of conventional fields coupled to background…

We prove that every smoothly embedded surface in a 4--manifold can be isotoped to be in bridge position with respect to a given trisection of the ambient 4--manifold; that is, after isotopy, the surface meets components of the trisection in…

We prove that in a closed Riemannian manifold with dimension between $3$ and $7$, either there are minimal hypersurfaces with arbitrarily large area, or there exist uncountably many stable minimal hypersurfaces. Moreover, the latter case…

This paper proves that every finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold M contains a ubiquitous collection of closed, immersed, quasi-Fuchsian surfaces. These surfaces are ubiquitous in the sense that their preimages in the universal cover…

We introduce the concept of pseudo-trisections of smooth oriented compact 4-manifolds with boundary. The main feature of pseudo-trisections is that they have lower complexity than relative trisections for given 4-manifolds. We prove…