Related papers: Instantons, concordance, and Whitehead doubling
We produce infinite families of knots $\{K^i\}_{i\geq 1}$ for which the set of cables $\{K^i_{p,1}\}_{i,p\geq 1}$ is linearly independent in the knot concordance group. We arrange that these examples lie arbitrarily deep in the solvable and…
There is an infinitely generated free subgroup of the smooth knot concordance group with the property that no nontrivial element in this subgroup can be represented by an alternating knot. This subgroup has the further property that every…
We apply the methods recently developed for computation of type IIA disk instantons using mirror symmetry to a large class of D-branes wrapped over Lagrangian cycles of non-compact Calabi-Yau 3-folds. Along the way we clarify the notion of…
A number of results for the level-rank duality of $G(N)_K$ $\leftrightarrow$ $G(K)_N$ Chern-Simons theory are summarized, with emphasis on the applications to knot and link invariants. Explicit examples for $SU(2)_K$ $\leftrightarrow$…
The existence of topologically slice knots that are of infinite order in the knot concordance group followed from Freedman's work on topological surgery and Donaldson's gauge theoretic approach to 4-manifolds. Here, as an application of…
We study analytic aspects of U(n) gauge theory over a toric noncommutative manifold $M_\theta$. We analyse moduli spaces of solutions to the self-dual Yang-Mills equations on U(2) vector bundles over four-manifolds $M_\theta$, showing that…
We prove that the unreduced singular instanton homology $I^\sharp(Y,K;\mathbb{Z})$ has $2$-torsion for any null-homologous fibered knot $K$ of genus $g>0$ in a closed $3$-manifold $Y$ except for $\#^{2g}S^1\times S^2$. The main technical…
We define a nontrivial mod 2 valued additive concordance invariant defined on the torsion subgroup of the knot concordance group using involutive knot Floer package. For knots not contained in its kernel, we prove that their iterated…
We prove that every nontrivial cable of the figure-eight knot has infinite order in the smooth knot concordance group. Our main contribution is a uniform proof that applies to all $(2n,1)$-cables of the figure-eight knot. To this end, we…
Knot concordance plays a crucial role in the low dimensional topology. We propose a very elementary techniques which allows one to construct a lot of sliceness obstructions for knots in the full torus. Our approach deals with group…
We introduce explicit holonomy perturbations of the Chern-Simons functional on a 3-ball containing a pair of unknotted arcs. These perturbations give us a concrete local method for making the moduli spaces of flat singular SO(3) connections…
We formulate large $N$ duality of $\mathrm{U}(N)$ refined Chern-Simons theory with a torus knot/link in $S^3$. By studying refined BPS states in M-theory, we provide the explicit form of low-energy effective actions of Type IIA string…
We define two concordance invariants of knots using framed instanton homology. These invariants $\nu^\sharp$ and $\tau^\sharp$ provide bounds on slice genus and maximum self-linking number, and the latter is a concordance homomorphism which…
The moduli space $\mathcal M(r,n)$ of framed torsion free sheaves on the projective plane with rank $r$ and second Chern class equal to $n$ has the natural action of the $(r+2)$-dimensional torus. In this paper, we look at the fixed point…
The aim of this paper is to realise the techniques of picture-valued invariants and invariants valued in free groups for long knots in the full torus. Such knots and links are of a particular interest because of their relation to Legendrian…
We prove that it is consistent that there is a non-reflexive Whitehead group, in fact one whose dual group is free. We also prove that it is consistent that there is a group A such that Ext(A,Z) is torsion and Hom(A,Z)=0. As an application…
We study the moduli space of $G_2$-instantons on (projectively) flat bundles over torsion-free $G_2$-orbifolds. We prove that the moduli space is compact and smooth at the irreducible locus after adding small and generic holonomy…
We review and elaborate on certain aspects of the connections between instanton counting in maximally supersymmetric gauge theories and the computation of enumerative invariants of smooth varieties. We study in detail three instances of…
McCarthy's Theorem for the mapping class group of a closed hyperbolic surface states that for any two mapping classes $\sigma,\tau \in \mathrm{Mod}(S)$ there is some power $N$ such that the group $\langle \sigma^N,\tau^N\rangle$ is either…
This is the first of a series of two technical papers devoted to the analysis of holonomy invariants in strict higher gauge theory with end applications in higher Chern--Simons theory. For a flat 2--connection, we define the 2-holonomy of…