Related papers: A note on cabled slice knots and reducible surgeri…
Bing doubling is an operation which produces a 2-component boundary link B(K) from a knot K. If K is slice, then B(K) is easily seen to be boundary slice. In this paper, we investigate whether the converse holds. Our main result is that if…
In this paper we clarify an issue in the knot surgery construction of Fintushel and Stern. Using knot surgery, they construct an infinite number of smooth structures on 4-manifolds satisfying certain conditions, but they do not explicitly…
Given a knot in the three-sphere, is it possible to unknot it by performing a single twist, and if so, what are the possible linking numbers of such a twist? We develop obstructions to unknotting using a twist of a specified linking number.…
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…
New lower bounds on the unknotting number of a knot are constructed from the classical knot signature function. These bounds can be twice as strong as previously known signature bounds. They can also be stronger than known bounds arising…
Whitehead doubles provide a plethora of examples of knots that are topologically slice but not smoothly slice. We discuss the problem of the Whitehead double of the Figure 8 knot and survey commonly used techniques to obstructing sliceness.…
For the purposes of this paper, Dehn surgery along a curve K in a 3-manifold M with slope r is `exceptional' if the resulting 3-manifold M_K(r) is reducible or a solid torus, or the core of the surgery solid torus has finite order in the…
We give a diagrammatic characterization of the $(1,1)$ knots in the three-sphere and lens spaces which admit large Dehn surgeries to manifolds with Heegaard Floer homology of next-to-minimal rank. This is inspired by a corresponding result…
We classify the positive definite intersection forms that arise from smooth 4-manifolds with torsion-free homology bounded by positive integer surgeries on the right-handed trefoil. A similar, slightly less complete classification is given…
We investigate the properties of knots in S^3 which bound Klein bottles, such that a pushoff of the knot has zero linking number with the knot, i.e. has zero framing. This is motivated by the many results in the literature regarding slice…
We give examples of knots in a genus 2 handlebody which have nontrivial Dehn surgeries yielding handlebodies and show that these knots are not 1--bridge.
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 short note, we prove that every closed, oriented, connected 3-manifold arises as Dehn surgery along a braid positive link.
By recent results of Baker--Etnyre--Van Horn-Morris, a rational open book decomposition defines a compatible contact structure. We show that the Heegaard Floer contact invariant of such a contact structure can be computed in terms of the…
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…
We prove that a positive two-bridge knot other than the $(2,k)$ torus knot does not admit chirally cosmetic surgeries, a pair of Dehn surgeries along distinct slopes yielding orientation-reversingly homeomorphic 3-manifolds.
We classify all the exceptional Dehn surgeries on the minimally twisted chain links with six and seven components.
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…
We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a simple closed curve on the boundary of a genus two handlebody to decompose the handlebody into (torus with one boundary component times [0,1]. We use this condition to decide whether a…
We study Dehn surgeries on null-homotopic knots that yield fibred $3$--manifolds when an additional (but natural) homological restriction is imposed. The major tool used is Gabai's theory of sutured manifold decomposition. Such surgeries…