Related papers: Cosmetic crossings and Seifert matrices

We show that for genus one knots the Alexander polynomial and the homology of the double cover branching over the knot provide obstructions to cosmetic crossings. As an application we prove the nugatory crossing conjecture for the…

We prove the cosmetic crossing conjecture for genus one knots with non-trivial Alexander polynomial. We also prove the conjecture for genus one knots with trivial Alexander polynomial, under some additional assumptions.

The cosmetic crossing conjecture posits that switching a non-trivial crossing in a knot diagram always changes the knot type. Generalizing work of Balm, Friedl, Kalfagianni and Powell, and of Lidman and Moore, we give an Alexander…

We give an obstruction for genus one knots $K$, $K'$ to have the Gordian distance one by using the $0$th coefficient of the HOMFLT polynomials. As an application, we give a new constraint for genus one knot to admit a (generalized) cosmetic…

Roberts proved that a family of alternating, arborescent, prime knots each have at least $2^{2n-1}$ distinct minimal genus Seifert surfaces, where $n$ is the genus of the knot in question. We give a subfamily of these knots that have…

The cosmetic crossing conjecture (also known as the "nugatory crossing conjecture") asserts that the only crossing changes that preserve the oriented isotopy class of a knot in the 3-sphere are nugatory. We use the Dehn surgery…

Given a band sum of a split two-component link along a nontrivial band, we obtain a family of knots indexed by the integers by adding any number of full twists to the band. We show that the knots in this family have the same Heegaard knot…

We prove the nugatory crossing conjecture for fibered knots. We also show that if a knot $K$ is $n$-adjacent to a fibered knot $K'$, for some $n>1$, then either the genus of $K$ is larger than that of $K'$ or $K$ is isotopic to $K'$.

If a knot $K$ in $S^3$ admits a pair of truly cosmetic surgeries, we show that the surgery slopes are either $\pm 2$ or $\pm 1/q$ for some value of $q$ that is explicitly determined by the knot Floer homology of $K$. Moreover, in the former…

By examining the homology groups of a 4-manifold associated to an integral surgery on a knot $K$ in a rational homology 3-sphere $Y$ yielding a rational homology 3-sphere $Y^*$ with surgery dual knot $K^*$, we show that the subgroups…

We show that the difference between the Seifert genus and the topological 4-genus of a prime positive braid knot is bounded from below by an affine function of the minimal number of strands among positive braid representatives of the knot.…

A conjecture proposed by J. Tripp in 2002 states that the crossing number of any knot coincides with the canonical genus of its Whitehead double. In the meantime, it has been established that this conjecture is true for a large class of…

In this paper we present a sequence of link invariants, defined from twisted Alexander polynomials, and discuss their effectiveness in distinguish knots. In particular, we recast and extend by geometric means a recent result of Silver and…

We show that for an alternating pretzel knot K the canonical genera of its Whitehead doubles W(K) are equal to the crossing number c(K) of K, verifying a conjecture of Tripp in the case of these knots.

This paper contains the results of efforts to determine values of the smooth and the topological slice genus of 11- and 12-crossing knots. Upper bounds for these genera were produced by using a computer to search for genus one concordances…

For any knot with genus one and unknotting number one, other than the figure-eight knot, we prove that there is exactly one way to unknot it by means of a crossing change. In the case of the figure-eight knot, we prove that there are…

We prove that a family of links, which includes all special alternating knots, does not admit non-nugatory crossing changes which preserve the isotopy type of the link. Our proof incorporates a result of Lidman and Moore on crossing changes…

Let K' be a knot that admits no cosmetic crossing changes and let C be a non-trivial, prime, non-cable knot. Then any knot that is a satellite of C with winding number zero and pattern K' admits no cosmetic crossing changes. As a…

We derive new obstructions to periodicity of classical knots by employing the Heegaard Floer correction terms of the finite cyclic branched covers of the knots. Applying our results to two fold covers, we demonstrate through numerous…

We consider homologically essential simple closed curves on Seifert surfaces of genus one knots in $S^3$, and in particular those that are unknotted or slice in $S^3$. We completely characterize all such curves for most twist knots: they…