Related papers: Surgeries, sharp 4-manifolds and the Alexander pol…
A non-trivial slope $r$ on a knot $K$ in $S^3$ is called a characterizing slope if whenever the result of $r$-surgery on a knot $K'$ is orientation preservingly homeomorphic to the result of $r$-surgery on $K$, then $K'$ is isotopic to $K$.…
We execute Avdek's algorithm to find many algebraically overtwisted and tight $3$-manifolds by contact $+1$ surgeries. In particular, we show that a contact $1/k$ surgery on the standard contact $3$-sphere along any positive torus knot with…
We prove that the signature bound for the topological 4-genus of 3-strand torus knots is sharp, using McCoy's twisting method. We also show that the bound is off by at most 1 for 4-strand and 6-strand torus knots, and improve the upper…
Given an $S\cong \mathbb{R}P^2$ smoothly embedded in a 4-manifold $X^4$ with Euler number 2 or -2, the Price twist is a surgery operation on $\nu(S)$ yielding (up to) three different 4-manifolds: $X^4,\tau_S(X^4),\Sigma_S(X^4)$. This is of…
We define a "reduced" version of the knot Floer complex $CFK^-(K)$, and show that it behaves well under connected sums and retains enough information to compute Heegaard Floer $d$-invariants of manifolds arising as surgeries on the knot…
We study the $\mathbb{CP}^2$-slicing number of knots, i.e. the smallest $m\geq 0$ such that a knot $K\subseteq S^3$ bounds a properly embedded, null-homologous disk in a punctured connected sum $(\#^m\mathbb{CP}^2)^{\times}$. We give a…
We give necessary and sufficient conditions for an integer to be the signature of a (4q-1)-knot in the (4q+1)-sphere with a given square-free Alexander polynomial.
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 give upper and lower bounds on the leading coefficients of the $L^2$-Alexander torsions of a $3$-manifold $M$ in terms of hyperbolic volumes and of relative $L^2$-torsions of sutured manifolds obtained by cutting $M$ along certain…
This paper proves a theorem about Dehn surgery using a new theorem about PSL(2, C) character varieties. Confirming a conjecture of Boyer and Zhang, this paper shows that a small hyperbolic knot in a homotopy sphere having a non-trivial…
We classify which positive integral surgeries on positive torus knots bound rational homology balls. Additionally, for a given knot K we consider which cables K(p,q) admit integral surgeries that bound rational homology balls. For such…
For p=3 and for p=5 we prove that there are exactly p equivalence classes of p-coloured knots modulo (+/-1)--framed surgeries along unknots in the kernel of a p-colouring. These equivalence classes are represented by connect-sums of n…
We study knots in $S^3$ with infinitely many $SU(2)$-cyclic surgeries, which are Dehn surgeries such that every representation of the resulting fundamental group into $SU(2)$ has cyclic image. We show that for every such nontrivial knot…
Every element in the first cohomology group of a 3--manifold is dual to embedded surfaces. The Thurston norm measures the minimal `complexity' of such surfaces. For instance the Thurston norm of a knot complement determines the genus of the…
It is known since 1954 that every 3-manifold bounds a 4-manifold. Thus, for instance, every 3-manifold has a surgery diagram. There are several proofs of this fact, including constructive proofs, but there has been little attention to the…
We investigate the operation of torus surgery on tori embedded in $S^4$. Key questions include which 4-manifolds can be obtained in this way, and the uniqueness of such descriptions. As an application we construct embeddings of 3-manifolds…
For a knot $K$ in the 3-sphere and a simply connected closed 4-manifold $X$, we define the $X$-double slice genus of $K$, extending the notion from the case when $X$ is the 4-sphere. We show that for each integer $n$, there exists an…
In this article, we apply slope detection techniques to study properties of toroidal $3$-manifolds obtained by performing Dehn surgeries on satellite knots in the context of the $L$-space conjecture. We show that if $K$ is an $L$-space knot…
Let $M_{\lambda}$ be the $\lambda$-component Milnor link. For $\lambda \ge 3$, we determine completely when a finite slope surgery along $M_{\lambda}$ yields a lens space including $S^3$ and $S^1\times S^2$, where {\it finite slope surgery}…
For a hyperbolic knot in $S^3$, Dehn surgery along slope $r \in \Q \cup \{\frac10\}$ is {\em exceptional} if it results in a non-hyperbolic manifold. We say meridional surgery, $r = \frac10$, is {\em trivial} as it recovers the manifold…