Related papers: On malnormal peripheral subgroups in fundamental g…

Final revision. To appear in the Journal of Differential Geometry. This paper studies knots that are transversal to the standard contact structure in $\reals^3$, bringing techniques from topological knot theory to bear on their transversal…

In Theorem 1.2 of the paper math.GT/0002110 the author claimed to have proved that all transversal knots whose topological knot type is that of an iterated torus knot (we call them cable knots) are transversally simple. That theorem is…

The paper deals with topologically trivial Legendrian knots in tight and overtwisted contact 3-manifolds. The first part contains a thorough exposition of the proof of the classification of topologically trivial Legendrian knots (i.e.…

Let K be a knot in the 3-sphere with 2-fold branched covering space M. If for some prime p congruent to 3 mod 4 the p-torsion in the first homology of M is cyclic with odd exponent, then K is of infinite order in the knot concordance group.…

In this thesis, I determine a bound on the defect of terminal Gorenstein quartic 3-folds. More generally, I study the defect of terminal Gorenstein Fano 3-folds of Picard rank 1 and genus at least 3. I state a geometric "motivation" of non…

This article provides the basic algebraic background on infinitesimal deformations and presents the proof of the well-known fact that the non-trivial infinitesimal deformations of a $K$-algebra $R$ are parameterized by the elements of…

For an odd quadratic space $V$ of Witt index $\geq 3$ over a commutative ring with pseudoinvolution, we classify the subgroups of the odd unitary group $U(V)$ that are normalized by the elementary subgroup $EU_{(e_1,e_{-1})}(V)$ defined by…

Let $ M$ be a cusped hyperbolic $ 3$-manifold, e.g. a knot complement. Thurston showed that the space of deformations of its fundamental group in $ \mathrm {PGL}(2,\mathbf {C})$ (up to conjugation) is of complex dimension the number $ \nu $…

We discuss differences between genera of smooth and locally-flat non-orientable surfaces in the 4-ball with boundary a given torus knot or 2-bridge knot. In particular, we establish that a result by Batson on the smooth non-orientable…

We explore the topological significance of the Gukov-Manolescu knot series $F_K$. We show that the leading coefficient of $F_K$ is a monomial and express its exponent in terms of the Hopf invariant for all homogeneous braid knots, and for…

For each sequence of polynomials, P=(p_1(t),p_2(t),...), we define a characteristic series of groups, called the derived series localized at P. Given a knot K in S^3, such a sequence of polynomials arises naturally as the orders of certain…

Let $G$ be a finite group and let $(P_i)_{i=1}^n$ be Sylow subgroups for distinct primes $p_1,\ldots,p_n$. We conjecture that there exists $x \in G$ such that $P_i \cap P_i^x$ is inclusion-minimal in $\{ P_i \cap P_i^g : g \in G\}$ for all…

We prove that if positive integer p-surgery along a knot K \subset S^3 produces an L-space and it bounds a sharp 4-manifold, then the knot genus obeys the bound 2g(K) -1 \leq p - \sqrt{3p+1}. Moreover, there exists an infinite family of…

Let $\Delta$ be a hyperbolic triangle with a fixed area $\varphi$. We prove that for all but countably many $\varphi$, generic choices of $\Delta$ have the property that the group generated by the $\pi$--rotations about the midpoints of the…

Topologically non-trivial configurations of the hypermagnetic flux lines lead to the formation of hypermagnetic knots (HK) whose decay might seed the Baryon Asymmetry of the Universe (BAU).HK can be dynamically generated provided a…

We call a knot in the 3-sphere $SU(2)$-simple if all representations of the fundamental group of its complement which map a meridian to a trace-free element in $SU(2)$ are binary dihedral. This is a generalisation of being a 2-bridge knot.…

We construct new knot polynomials. Let $V$ be the standard solid torus in 3-space and let $pr$ be its standard projection onto an annulus. Let $M$ be the space of all smooth oriented knots in $V$ such that the restriction of $pr$ is an…

Let K be a tame knot with irreducible exterior M(K) in a closed, connected, orientable 3--manifold Sigma such that pi_1(Sigma) is cyclic. If infinity is not a strict boundary slope, then the diameter of the set of strict boundary slopes of…

We study positive braid knots (the knots in the three-sphere realized as positive braid closures) through the lens of the L-space conjecture. This conjecture predicts that if $K$ is a non-trivial positive braid knot, then for all $r <…

A parametric manifold can be viewed as the manifold of orbits of a (regular) foliation of a manifold by means of a family of curves. If the foliation is hypersurface orthogonal, the parametric manifold is equivalent to the 1-parameter…