Related papers: Infinitely many knots admitting the same integer s…

We survey aspects of classical combinatorial sutured manifold theory and show how they can be adapted to study exceptional Dehn fillings and 2-handle additions. As a consequence we show that if a hyperbolic knot $\beta$ in a compact,…

We show that all pretzel knots satisfy the (purely) cosmetic surgery conjecture, i.e. Dehn surgeries with different slopes along a pretzel knot provide different oriented three-manifolds.

Let $k\subset S^3$ be a nontrivial knot. The Cabling Conjecture of Francisco Gonz\'alez-Acu\~na and Hamish Short posits that $\pi$-Dehn surgery on $k$ produces a reducible manifold if and only if $k$ is a $(p,q)$-cable knot and the surgery…

We prove that all knots with unknotting number at most 21 are smoothly slice in the K3 surface. We also prove a more general statement for 4-manifolds that contain a plumbing tree of spheres. Our strategy is based on a flexible method to…

We consider a relation between two kinds of unknotting numbers defined by using a band surgery on unoriented knots; the band-unknotting number and H(2)-unknotting number, which we may characterize in terms of the first Betti number of…

In view of the self-linking invariant, the number $|K|$ of framed knots in $S^3$ with given underlying knot $K$ is infinite. In fact, the second author previously defined affine self-linking invariants and used them to show that $|K|$ is…

This paper employs knot invariants and results from hyperbolic geometry to develop a practical procedure for checking the cosmetic surgery conjecture on any given one-cusped manifold. This procedure has been used to establish the following…

We show that if $K$ is a knot in $S^3$ and $\Sigma$ is a bridge sphere for $K$ with high distance and $2n$ punctures, the number of perturbations of $K$ required to interchange the two balls bounded by $\Sigma$ via an isotopy is $n$. We…

$\rm SL(2,\mathbb{C})$ Chern-Simons theory on a closed 3-manifold is one of the most interesting, yet tractable examples of a QFT. On one hand, its non-perturbative structure is not yet fully understood; on the other, the mathematical…

Given a simply-connected closed 4-manifold $X$ and a smoothly embedded oriented surface $\Sigma$, various constructions based on Fintushel-Stern knot surgery have produced new surfaces in $X$ that are pairwise homeomorphic to $\Sigma$, but…

Using the rational surgery formula for the Casson--Walker--Lescop invariant of links in the $3$-sphere, we show that any null-homologous knot in a rational homology sphere admits at most two pairs of integral purely cosmetic surgeries. We…

Closed 3-string braids admit many bandings to two-bridge links. By way of the Montesinos Trick, this allows us to construct infinite families of knots in the connected sum of lens spaces L(r,1) # L(s,1) that admit a surgery to a lens space…

We investigate the behavior of the SL(2,C) Casson invariant for 3-manifolds obtained by Dehn surgery along two-bridge knots. Using the results of Hatcher and Thurston, and also results of Ohtsuki, we outline how to compute the…

We give two infinite families of examples of closed, orientable, irreducible 3-manifolds $M$ such that $b_1(M)=1$ and $\pi_1(M)$ has weight 1, but $M$ is not the result of Dehn surgery along a knot in the 3-sphere. This answers a question…

For a knot $K$ in a homology $3$-sphere $\Sigma$, let $M$ be the result of $2/q$-surgery on $K$, and let $X$ be the universal abelian covering of $M$. Our first theorem is that if the first homology of $X$ is finite cyclic and $M$ is a…

In this paper, we define a new algebro-geometric invariant of 3-manifolds resulting from the Dehn surgery along a hyperbolic knot complement in S^3. We establish a Casson type invariant for these 3-manifolds. In the last section, we…

Many three dimensional manifolds are two-fold branched covers of the three dimensional sphere. However, there are some that are not. This paper includes exposition about two-fold branched covers and many examples. It shows that there are…

We exhibit an infinite family of knots in the Poincare homology sphere with tunnel number 2 that have a lens space surgery. Notably, these knots are not doubly primitive and provide counterexamples to a few conjectures. In the appendix, it…

Associated to a hyperbolic knot complement in $S^3$ is a set of prime numbers corresponding to the residue characteristics of the ramified places of the quaternion algebras obtained by Dehn surgery on the knots. Previous work by…

In the first part of this paper, we construct infinitely many hyperbolic closed 3-manifolds which admit no symplectic fillable contact structure. All these 3-manifolds are obtained by Dehn surgeries along L-space knots or L-space…