Related papers: Fibered knots with the same $0$-surgery and the sl…
Kanenobu has given infinite families of knots with the same HOMFLY polynomials. We show that these knots also have the same sl(n) and HOMFLY homologies, thus giving the first example of an infinite family of knots undistinguishable by these…
There is a question asking whether a handle-irreducible summand of every stable-ribbon surface-link is a unique ribbon surface-link. This question for the case of a trivial surface-link is affirmatively answered. That is, a…
We present a short proof of a theorem of Tanaka that if a composite ribbon knot admits a symmetric union presentation with one twisting region, then it has a non-trivial knot and its mirror image as connected summands.
Recently, the bunkbed conjecture has been shown to be false, which naturally prompts questions on how to classify the graphs that still satisfy the conjecture. We distinguish between a weak version of the bunkbed conjecture where all the…
As a corollary of work of Ozsvath and Szabo [math.GT/0301149], it is shown that the classical concordance group of algebraically slice knots has an infinite cyclic summand and in particular is not a divisible group.
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…
Satellite constructions on a knot can be thought of as taking some strands of a knot and then tying in another knot. Using satellite constructions one can construct many distinct isotopy classes of knots. Pushing this further one can…
We complete the classification of hyperbolic pretzel knots admitting Seifert fibered surgeries. This is the final step in understanding all exceptional surgeries on hyperbolic pretzel knots. We also present results toward similar…
In this paper we prove that if $M_K$ is the complement of a non-fibered twist knot $K$ in $\mathbb S^3$, then $M_K$ is not commensurable to a fibered knot complement in a $\mathbb Z/ 2 \mathbb Z$-homology sphere. To prove this result we…
In this paper, we define the primitive/Seifert-fibered property for a knot in S^3. If satisfied, the property ensures that the knot has a Dehn surgery that yields a small Seifert-fibered space (i.e. base S^2 and three or fewer critical…
We study the band-unknotting number $u_{nb}(K)$ of a knot $K$, and how it behaves with respect to connect sums. We show that this sub-additive function is not additive under connected sums, by finding infinitely many examples of knots $K_1,…
Two Dehn surgeries on a knot are called purely cosmetic if their surgered manifolds are homeomorphic as oriented manifolds. Gordon conjectured that non-trivial knots in $S^3$ do not admit purely cosmetic surgeries. In this article, we…
We prove a formula for the involutive concordance invariants of the cabled knots in terms of that of the companion knot and the pattern knot. As a consequence, we show that any iterated cable of a knot with parameters of the form (odd,1) is…
This survey reviews Kauffman's model of folded ribbon knots: knots made of a thin strip of paper folded flat in the plane. The ribbonlength is the length to width ratio of such a ribbon, and the ribbonlength problem asks to minimize the…
Let $G$ be a bridgeless cubic graph. In 2023, the three authors solved a conjecture (also known as the $S_4$-Conjecture) made by Mazzuoccolo in 2013: there exist two perfect matchings of $G$ such that the complement of their union is a…
A knot in $S^3$ is topologically slice if it bounds a locally flat disk in $B^4$. A knot in $S^3$ is rationally slice if it bounds a smooth disk in a rational homology ball. We prove that the smooth concordance group of topologically and…
Motivated by the study of ribbon knots we explore symmetric unions, a beautiful construction introduced by Kinoshita and Terasaka 50 years ago. It is easy to see that every symmetric union represents a ribbon knot, but the converse is still…
Fintushel-Stern's knot surgery gave many pairs of exotic manifolds, which are homeomorphic but non-diffeomorphic. We show that if an elliptic fibration has two parallel, oppositely oriented vanishing circles (for example $S^2\times S^2$ or…
Surgery on a knot in $S^3$ is said to be an alternating surgery if it yields the double branched cover of an alternating link. The main theoretical contribution is to show that the set of alternating surgery slopes is algorithmically…
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…