Related papers: Dehn surgeries and negative-definite four-manifold…

We provide new examples of 3-manifolds with weight one fundamental group and the same integral homology as the lens space $L(2k,1)$ which are not surgery on any knot in the three-sphere. Our argument uses Furuta's 10/8-theorem, and is…

The trace of $n$-framed surgery on a knot in $S^3$ is a 4-manifold homotopy equivalent to the 2-sphere. We characterise when a generator of the second homotopy group of such a manifold can be realised by a locally flat embedded 2-sphere…

Knot Floer homology is an invariant for knots discovered by the authors and, independently, Jacob Rasmussen. The discovery of this invariant grew naturally out of studying how a certain three-manifold invariant, Heegaard Floer homology,…

We generalize the $F_K$ invariant, i.e. $\widehat{Z}$ for the complement of a knot $K$ in the 3-sphere, the knots-quivers correspondence, and $A$-polynomials of knots, and find several interconnections between them. We associate an $F_K$…

This is a PhD thesis about low dimensional topology, in particular knot thory in 3-manifolds also different from the 3-sphere, topological applications of quantum invariants, and Turaev's shadows. There is an introduction and a survey for…

In this paper we clarify an issue in the knot surgery construction of Fintushel and Stern. Using knot surgery, they construct an infinite number of smooth structures on 4-manifolds satisfying certain conditions, but they do not explicitly…

A knot in the 3-sphere is called an L-space knot if it admits a nontrivial Dehn surgery yielding an L-space, i.e. a rational homology 3-sphere with the smallest possible Heegaard Floer homology. Given a knot K, take an unknotted circle c…

We classify the positive definite intersection forms that arise from smooth 4-manifolds with torsion-free homology bounded by positive integer surgeries on the right-handed trefoil. A similar, slightly less complete classification is given…

We prove an integral surgery formula for framed instanton homology $I^\sharp(Y_m(K))$ for any knot $K$ in a $3$-manifold $Y$ with $[K]=0\in H_1(Y;\mathbb{Q})$ and $m\neq 0$. Though the statement is similar to Ozsv\'ath-Szab\'o's integral…

For any homotopy class h in any compact orientable 3-manifold M which is closed or has exclusively torus boundary components, we produce infinitely many pairs of distinct knots representing h with orientation-preserving homeomorphic…

The defect $d(M,\rho)$ is an invariant of a compact oriented 3-manifold $M$ with a representation $\rho$ of the fundamental group. In this article we give a diagrammatic method for $d$ of knot exteriors by using knot diagrams.

We determine all hyperbolic 3-manifolds $M$ admitting two toroidal Dehn fillings at distance 4 or 5. We show that if $M$ is a hyperbolic 3-manifold with a torus boundary component $T_0$, and $r,s$ are two slopes on $T_0$ with $\Delta(r,s) =…

In this article we prove that, if $X$ is a smooth $4$-manifold containing an embedded double node neighborhood, all knot surgery $4$-manifolds $X_K$ are mutually diffeomorphic to each other after a connected sum with $\mathbb{CP}^2$. Hence,…

Let f be an integer greater than one. We study three progressively finer equivalence relations on closed 3-manifolds generated by Dehn surgery with denominator f: weak f-congruence, f-congruence, and strong f-congruence. If f is odd, weak…

It is conjectured that, on a non-trivial knot in the 3-sphere, no pair of Dehn surgeries along distinct slopes are purely cosmetic, that is, none of them yield 3-manifolds those are orientation-preservingly homeomorphic. In this paper, we…

Given a transverse link in the standard contact 3-sphere, we study the contact manifold that arises as a branched double cover of the sphere. We give a contact surgery description of such manifolds, which allows to determine the Heegaard…

Recently Witten introduced a type IIB brane construction with certain boundary conditions to study knot invariants and Khovanov homology. The essential ingredients used in his work are the topologically twisted N = 4 Yang-Mills theory,…

We generalise the Kreck-Stolz invariants s_2 and s_3 by defining a new invariant, the t-invariant, for quaternionic line bundles E over closed spin-manifolds M of dimension 4k-1 with H^3(M; \Q) = 0 such that c_2(E)\in H^4(M) is torsion. The…

In this thesis, we prove several results concerning field-theoretic invariants of knots and 3-manifolds. In Chapter 2, for any knot $K$ in a closed, oriented 3-manifold $M$, we use $SU(2)$ representation spaces and the Lagrangian field…

The stable 4-genus of a knot K in 3-space is the limiting value of g_4(nK)/n, where g_4 denotes the 4-genus and n goes to infinity. This induces a seminorm on CQ, the concordance group tensored with the rational numbers. Basic properties of…