Related papers: Bounds on alternating surgery slopes

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…

In a 3-manifold M, let K be a knot and R be an annulus which meets K transversely. We define the notion of the pair (R,K) being caught by a surface Q in the exterior of the link given by K and the boundary curves of R. For a caught pair…

The cosmetic crossing conjecture posits that switching a non-trivial crossing in a knot diagram always changes the knot type. Generalizing work of Balm, Friedl, Kalfagianni and Powell, and of Lidman and Moore, we give an Alexander…

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,…

We discuss an obstruction to a knot being smoothly slice that comes from minimum-genus bounds on smoothly embedded surfaces in definite 4-manifolds. As an example, we provide an alternate proof of the fact that the (2,1)-cable of the figure…

A long standing open conjecture states that if a link $\mathcal{K}$ is alternating, then its ropelength $L(\mathcal{K})$ is at least of the order $O(Cr(\mathcal{K}))$. A recent result shows that the maximum braid index of a link bounds the…

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…

Let K be a knot in the 3-sphere with 2-fold branched covering space M. If for some prime p congruent to 3 mod 4 the p-torsion in the first homology of M is cyclic with odd exponent, then K is of infinite order in the knot concordance group.…

We show that two Dehn surgeries on a knot $K$ never yield manifolds that are homeomorphic as oriented manifolds if $V_K''(1)\neq 0$ or $V_K'''(1)\neq 0$. As an application, we verify the cosmetic surgery conjecture for all knots with no…

It is known that for every knotted curve in space, there is a line intersecting it in four places, a quadrisecant. Comparing the order of the four points along the line and knot we can distinguish three types of quadrisecants; the…

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…

Let $M$ be a connected, closed, oriented three-manifold and $K$, $L$ two rationally null-homologous oriented simple closed curves in $M$. We give an explicit algorithm for computing the linking number between $K$ and $L$ in terms of a…

Branch points of a real 2-surface S in a 4-manifold M generalize the branch points of complex curves in complex surfaces: for example, they can occur as singularities of minimal surfaces. We investigate such a branch point p when S is…

This paper concerns thin presentations of knots K in closed 3-manifolds M^3 which produce S^3 by Dehn surgery, for some slope gamma. If M does not have a lens space as a connected summand, we first prove that all such thin presentations,…

It is well-known that the second coefficient of the Alexander polynomial of any lens space knot in $S^3$ is $-1$. We show that the non-zero third coefficient condition of the Alexander polynomial of a lens space knot $K$ in $S^3$ confines…

Consider a dihedral cover $f: Y\to X$ with $X$ and $Y$ four-manifolds and $f$ branched along an oriented surface embedded in $X$ with isolated cone singularities. We prove that only a slice knot can arise as the unique singularity on an…

Given a link L in the 3-sphere, we ask whether the components of L bound disjoint, nullhomologous disks properly embedded in a simply-connected positive-definite smooth 4-manifold; the knot case has been studied extensively in work of…

We introduce the four-page index of a knot or link as a presentation invariant arising from embeddings in a four-page open book decomposition. Using spanning trees of the checkerboard graph of a reduced non-split diagram, we construct 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…

We develop obstructions to a knot K in the 3-sphere bounding a smooth punctured Klein bottle in the 4-ball. The simplest of these is based on the linking form of the 2-fold branched cover of the 3-sphere branched over K. Stronger…