Related papers: Filtering smooth concordance classes of topologica…
In a groundbreaking work A. Levine proved the surprising result that there exist knots in homology spheres which are not smoothly concordant to any knot in $S^3$, even if one allows for concordances in homology cobordisms. Since then…
For any group G, we define a new characteristic series related to the derived series, that we call the torsion-free derived series of G. Using this series and the Cheeger-Gromov rho-invariant, we obtain new real-valued homology cobordism…
We construct many examples of non-slice knots in 3-space that cannot be distinguished from slice knots by previously known invariants. Using Whitney towers in place of embedded disks, we define a geometric filtration of the 3-dimensional…
We introduce a new technique for showing classical knots and links are not slice. As one application we resolve a long-standing question as to whether certain natural families of knots contain topologically slice knots. We also present a…
This thesis develops some general calculational techniques for finding the orders of knots in the topological concordance group C. The techniques currently available in the literature are either too theoretical, applying to only a small…
A crucial step in the surgery-theoretic program to classify smooth manifolds is that of representing a middle--dimensional homology class by a smoothly embedded sphere. This step fails even for the simple 4-manifolds obtained from the…
We construct an infinite family of smoothly slice knots that we prove are topologically doubly slice. Using the correction terms coming from Heegaard Floer homology, we show that none of these knots is smoothly doubly slice. We use these…
Let $\mathcal{T}$ be the group of smooth concordance classes of topologically slice knots, and $\{0\}\subset\cdots\subset \mathcal{T}_{n+1}\subset\mathcal{T}_{n}\subset \cdots\subset \mathcal{T}_{0}\subset \mathcal{T}$ be the bipolar…
We prove that there exist infinitely many topologically slice knots which cannot bound a smooth null-homologous disk in any definite 4-manifold. Furthermore, we show that we can take such knots so that they are linearly independent in the…
As proved by Hedden and Ording, there exist knots for which the Ozsvath-Szabo and Rasmussen smooth concordance invariants, tau and s, differ. The Hedden-Ording examples have nontrivial Alexander polynomials and are not topologically slice.…
We establish a number of results about smooth and topological concordance of knots in $S^1\times S^2$. The winding number of a knot in $S^1\times S^2$ is defined to be its class in $H_1(S^1\times S^2;\mathbb{Z})\cong \mathbb{Z}$. We show…
It is known that each of the successive quotient groups of the grope and solvable filtrations of the knot concordance group has an infinite rank subgroup. The generating knots of these subgroups are constructed using iterated doubling…
We study knots of order 2 in the grope filtration $\{\G_h\}$ and the solvable filtration $\{\F_h\}$ of the knot concordance group. We show that, for any integer $n\ge4$, there are knots generating a $\Z_2^\infty$ subgroup of…
We define an algebraic group comprising symmetric chain complexes which captures the first two stages of the Cochran-Orr-Teichner solvable filtration of the knot concordance group in a single obstruction. To achieve this we impose…
We define an algebraic group comprising symmetric chain complexes which captures the first two stages of the Cochran-Orr-Teichner solvable filtration of the knot concordance group in a single invariant. To achieve this we impose additional…
There are 352.2 million prime knots in the 3-sphere with at most 19 crossings. We study which of these knots are slice, in both the smooth and topological categories. While no algorithm is known for deciding whether a given knot is slice in…
We consider the Grope filtration of the classical knot concordance group that was introduced in a paper of Cochran, Orr and Teichner. Our main result is that successive quotients at each stage in this filtration have infinite rank. We also…
We define a filtration of the smooth concordance group based on the genus of representative knots. We use the Heegaard Floer epsilon and Upsilon invariants to prove the quotient groups with respect to this filtration are infinitely…
We investigate the disparity between smooth and topological almost concordance of knots in general 3-manifolds Y. Almost concordance is defined by considering knots in Y modulo concordance in Yx[0,1] and the action of the concordance group…
The $n$-solvable filtration of the $m$-component smooth (string) link concordance group, $$\dots \subset \mathcal{F}^m_{n+1} \subset \mathcal{F}^m_{n.5} \subset \mathcal{F}^m_n \dots \subset \mathcal{F}^m_1 \subset \mathcal{F}^m_{0.5}…