Related papers: Analytic knots, satellites and the 4-ball genus

We construct cobordisms of small genus between torus knots and use them to determine the cobordism distance between torus knots of small braid index. In fact, the cobordisms we construct arise as the intersection of a smooth algebraic curve…

A Seifert surface F for a knot K is free if the complement of F is a handlebody (i.e., has free fundamental group). The free genus of K is the minimum genus among all free Seifert surfaces for K. In this paper we show that there exist…

This paper gives new and elementary combinatorial topological proofs of the classification of unoriented and oriented rational knots and links. These proofs are based on the known classification of alternating knots through flyping, and the…

A polynomial knot is a smooth embedding $\kappa: \real \to \real^n$ whose components are polynomials. The case $n = 3$ is of particular interest. It is both an object of real algebraic geometry as well as being an open ended topological…

In a lens space X of order r a knot K representing an element of the fundamental group pi_1 X = Z/rZ of order s <= r contains a connected orientable surface S properly embedded in its exterior X-N(K) such that the boundary of S intersects…

Let $\Sigma_0,\Sigma_1$ be closed oriented surfaces. Two oriented knots $K_0 \subset \Sigma_0 \times [0,1]$ and $K_1 \subset \Sigma_1 \times [0,1]$ are said to be (virtually) concordant if there is a compact oriented $3$-manifold $W$ and a…

Freedman and Krushkal showed that if the surgery conjecture and the $s$-cobordism conjecture hold for all topological 4-manifolds, then every link with pairwise zero linking numbers is topologically round handle slice. Kim, Powell, and…

This manuscript introduces a new framework for the study of knots by exploring the neighborhood of knot embeddings in the space of simple open and closed curves in 3-space. The latter gives rise to a knotoid spectrum, which determines the…

We begin the systematic study of knot polynomials for the twist satellites of a knot, when its strand is substituted by a 2-strand twist knot. This is a generalization of cabling (torus satellites), when the substitute of the strand was a…

We complete the classification of the smooth, closed, oriented 4-manifolds having Euler characteristic less than four and a horizontal handlebody decomposition of genus one. We use the classification result to find a large family of…

We use the knot filtration on the Heegaard Floer complex to define an integer invariant tau(K) for knots. Like the classical signature, this invariant gives a homomorphism from the knot concordance group to Z. As such, it gives lower bounds…

We study the 4-move invariant \crl\ for links in the 3-sphere developed by Dabkowski and Sahi, which is defined as a quotient of the fundamental group of the link complement. We develop techniques for computing this invariant and show that…

It is proved that the Wedderburn Theorem on finite division rings implies that all knots and links in the smooth 4-dimensional manifolds are trivial.

Ozsvath and Szabo have defined a knot concordance invariant tau that bounds the 4-ball genus of a knot. Here we discuss shortcuts to its computation. We include examples of Alexander polynomial one knots for which the invariant is…

The trace of $n$-framed surgery on a knot in $S^3$ is a 4-manifold homotopy equivalent to the 2-sphere. We characterise when a generator of the second homotopy group of such a manifold can be realised by a locally flat embedded 2-sphere…

We construct families of trivial $2$-knots $K_i$ in $\mathbb{R}^4$ such that the maximal complexity of $2$-knots in any isotopy connecting $K_i$ with the standard unknot grows faster than a tower of exponentials of any fixed height of the…

It is well-known that all 2-knots are slice. Are all 2-links slice? This is an outstanding open question. In this paper we prove the following: For any 2-component 2-link (J,K)in the 4-sphere which bounds the 5-ball B^5, there is an…

In this paper, we determine geometric information on slope lengths of a large class of knots in the 3-sphere, based only on diagrammatical properties of the knots. In particular, we show such knots have meridian length strictly less than 4,…

The existence of topologically slice knots that are of infinite order in the knot concordance group followed from Freedman's work on topological surgery and Donaldson's gauge theoretic approach to 4-manifolds. Here, as an application of…

We study the group of rational concordance classes of codimension two knots in rational homology spheres. We give a full calculation of its algebraic theory by developing a complete set of new invariants. For computation, we relate these…