Related papers: Levels of knotting of spatial handlebodies
Finite-order invariants of knots in arbitrary 3-manifolds (including non-orientable ones) are constructed and studied by methods of the topology of discriminant sets. Obstructions to the integrability of admissible weight systems to…
Knots and links are fascinating and intricate topological objects. Their influence spans from DNA and molecular chemistry to vortices in superfluid helium, defects in liquid crystals and cosmic strings in the early universe. Here, we find…
We define homotopy-theoretic invariants of knots in prime 3-manifolds. Fix a knot J in a prime 3-manifold M. Call a knot K in M concordant to J if it cobounds a properly embedded annulus with J in MxI, and call K J-characteristic if there…
We discuss an "extrinsic" property of knots in a 3-subspace of the 3-sphere $S^3$ to characterize how the subspace is embedded in $S^3$. Specifically, we show that every knot in a subspace of the 3-sphere is transient if and only if the…
We construct a hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$ (with $\partial M$ totally geodesic) which contains no essential closed surfaces, but for any even integer $g> 0$ there are infinitely many separating slopes $r$ on $\partial M$ so that $M[r]$, the…
It is known that the fundamental group homomorphism $\pi_1(T^2) \to \pi_1(S^3\setminus K)$ induced by the inclusion of the boundary torus into the complement of a knot $K$ in $S^3$ is a complete knot invariant. Many classical invariants of…
In this paper, we describe the relation between the study of closed connected surfaces embedded in $S^3$ and the theory of handlebody-knots. By Fox's theorem, a pair of handlebody-knots is associated to a closed connected surface embedded…
The paper concerns two classical problems in knot theory pertaining to knot symmetry and knot exteriors. In the context of a knotted handlebody $V$ in a $3$-sphere $S^3$, the symmetry problem seeks to classify the mapping class group of the…
For every integer $g\ge 2$ we construct 3-dimensional genus-$g$ 1-handlebodies smoothly embedded in $S^4$ with the same boundary, and which are defined by the same cut systems of their boundary, yet which are not isotopic rel. boundary via…
This paper discusses some geometric ideas associated with knots in real projective 3-space $\mathbb{R}P^3$. These ideas are borrowed from classical knot theory. Since knots in $\mathbb{R}P^3$ are classified into three disjoint classes, -…
Let $\mathcal {M}$ be the space of all, including singular, long knots in 3-space and for which a fixed projection into the plane is an immersion. Let $cl(\Sigma^{(1)}_{iness})$ be the closure of the union of all singular knots in $\mathcal…
We investigate the class of $3$-decomposable genus two handlebody-knots and provide a complete classification of essential annuli in their exteriors. We introduce the notion of $\tau$- and $\rho$-tangles and good rectangles and annuli. By…
We study knots in $\mathbb{S}^3$ obtained by the intersection of a minimal surface in $\mathbb{R}^4$ with a small 3-sphere centered at a branch point. We construct examples of new minimal knots. In particular we show the existence of…
Relative self-linking and linking "numbers" for pairs of knots in oriented 3-manifolds are defined in terms of intersection invariants of immersed surfaces in 4-manifolds. The resulting concordance invariants generalize the usual…
A polynomial knot in $\mathbb{R}^n$ is a smooth embedding of $\mathbb{R}$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$ such that the component functions are real polynomials. In the earlier paper with Mishra, we have studied the space $\mathcal{P}$ of polynomial…
We consider the following question: How much of the combinatorial structure determining properties of $\overline{\mathcal{M}_{0, n}}$ is ``intrinsic'' and how much new information do we obtain from using properties specific to this space?…
We consider irreducible 3-manifolds M that arise as knot complements in closed 3-manifolds and that contain at most two connected strict essential surfaces. The results in the paper relate the boundary slopes of the two surfaces to their…
In this paper, we study reducible surgeries on knots in $S^3$. We develop thickness bounds for L-space knots that admit reducible surgeries, and lower bounds on the slice genus for general knots that admit reducible surgeries. The L-space…
We initiate the study of classical knots through the homotopy class of the n-th evaluation map of the knot, which is the induced map on the compactified n-point configuration space. Sending a knot to its n-th evaluation map realizes the…
We study knots in $S^3$ with infinitely many $SU(2)$-cyclic surgeries, which are Dehn surgeries such that every representation of the resulting fundamental group into $SU(2)$ has cyclic image. We show that for every such nontrivial knot…