Related papers: A classification of spanning surfaces for alternat…
We provide three 3-dimensional characterizations of the Z-slice genus of a knot, the minimal genus of a locally-flat surface in 4-space cobounding the knot whose complement has cyclic fundamental group: in terms of balanced algebraic…
We extend the equality-type results of Ito--Takimura and Kindred for the non-orientable genera of alternating knots to the setting of two-component alternating links. We show that, for such links, a unified quantity capturing both…
A knot K is called n-adjacent to another knot K', if K admits a projection containing n generalized crossings such that changing any 0 < m \leq n of them yields a projection of K'. We apply techniques from the theory of sutured 3-manifolds,…
We describe a normal surface algorithm that decides whether a knot, with known degree of the colored Jones polynomial, satisfies the Strong Slope Conjecture. We also discuss possible simplifications of our algorithm and state related open…
Menasco showed that a closed surface in the complement of a non-split prime alternating link in $S^3$ contains a circle isotopic in the link complement to a meridian of the links. This result is known as the meridian lemma for alternating…
We extend our previous work from arXiv:1903.06863 on biquandle module invariants of oriented surface-links to the case of unoriented surface-links using bikei modules. The resulting infinite family of enhanced invariants proves be effective…
For an oriented virtual link, L.H. Kauffman defined the f-polynomial (Jones polynomial). The supporting genus of a virtual link diagram is the minimal genus of a surface in which the diagram can be embedded. In this paper we show that the…
Charts are oriented labeled graphs in a disk. Any simple surface braid (2-dimensional braid) can be described by using a chart. Also, a chart represents an oriented closed surface (called a surface-link) embedded in 4-space. In this paper,…
Four constructions of Seifert surfaces - Hopf plumbing, arborescent plumbing, basketry, and T-bandword handle decomposition - are described, and some interrelationships found, e.g.: arborescent Seifert surfaces are baskets; Hopf-plumbed…
We introduce a new link invariant called the algebraic genus, which gives an upper bound for the topological slice genus of links. In fact, the algebraic genus is an upper bound for another version of the slice genus proposed here: the…
Given a smooth, irreducible, projective surface $S$, let $g(S)$ be the minimum geometric genus of an irreducible curve that moves in a linear system of positive dimension on $S$. We determine the value of this birational invariant for a…
We consider the problem of uniformly generating a spanning tree, of a connected undirected graph. This process is useful to compute statistics, namely for phylogenetic trees. We describe a Markov chain for producing these trees. For cycle…
A knitted surface is a surface with or without closed components smoothly properly embedded in $D^2 \times B^2$, which is a generalization of a braided surface. A knitted surface is called a 2-dimensional knit if its boundary is the closure…
A closed, orientable, splitting surface in an oriented $3$-manifold is a topologically minimal surface of index $n$ if its associated disk complex is $(n-2)$-connected but not $(n-1)$-connected. A critical surface is a topologically minimal…
A topology is defined on the mapping class group of a compact connected orientable surface. It is shown that a notion of "genericity" on subsets of the mapping class group arises from this definition. Many plausible results follow from this…
A branched covering surface-knot over an oriented surface-knot $F$ is a surface-knot in the form of a branched covering over $F$. A branched covering surface-knot over $F$ is presented by a graph called a chart on a surface diagram of $F$.…
Laundry surfaces for closed braid diagrams are presented. It is shown that braid diagrams are characterized by linking matrices obtained by lifting cycles from these surfaces. Oriented link types are then characterized by equivalence…
Consider a surface $S$ and let $M\subset S$. If $S\setminus M$ is not connected, then we say $M$ \emph{separates} $S$, and we refer to $M$ as a \emph{separating set} of $S$. If $M$ separates $S$, and no proper subset of $M$ separates $S$,…
We introduce a new standard form of a Seifert surface $F$. In that standard form, $F$ is obtained by successively plumbing flat annuli to a disk $D$, where the gluing regions are all in $D$. We show that any link has a Seifert surface in…
It is well known that the braid index of a link equals the minimum number of Seifert circles among all link diagrams representing it. For a link with a reduced alternating diagram $D$, $s(D)$, the number of Seifert circles in $D$, equals…