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Knot theory is actively studied both by physicists and mathematicians as it provides a connecting centerpiece for many physical and mathematical theories. One of the challenging problems in knot theory is distinguishing mutant knots. Mutant…
The unknotting number of a knot is bounded from below by its slice genus. It is a well-known fact that the genera and unknotting numbers of torus knots coincide. In this note we characterize quasipositive knots for which the genus bound is…
We revisit the issue of the existence of infinitely many distinct prime knots with the same Alexander invariant. We present infinitely many distinct families, each family made up of infinitely many distinct knots. Within each family, the…
In this short note we observe that a result of Eliashberg and Polterovitch allows to use the doubly slice genus as an obstruction for a Legendrian knot to be a slice of a concordance from the trivial Legendrian knot with maximal…
In the previous paper the author defined an infinite order plug $(P,\varphi)$ which gives rise to infinite Fintushel-Stern's knot-surgeries. Here, we give two 4-dimensional infinitely many exotic families $Y_n$, $Z_n$ of exotic enlargements…
In this note we show that ribbon concordance forms a partial ordering on the set of knots, answering a question of Gordon. The proof makes use of representation varieties of the knot groups to $SO(N)$ and relations between them induced by a…
We call a knot in the 3-sphere $SU(2)$-simple if all representations of the fundamental group of its complement which map a meridian to a trace-free element in $SU(2)$ are binary dihedral. This is a generalisation of being a 2-bridge knot.…
We study the AJ conjecture that relates the A-polynomial and the colored Jones polynomial of a knot in $S^3$. We confirm the AJ conjecture for $(r,2)$-cables of the $m$-twist knot, for all odd integers $r$ satisfying $\begin{cases}…
Given a thin strip of paper, tie a knot, connect the ends, and flatten into the plane. This is a physical model of a folded ribbon knot in the plane, first introduced by Louis Kauffman. We study the folded ribbonlength of these folded…
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…
As proved by Hedden and Ording, there exist knots for which the Ozsvath-Szabo and Rasmussen smooth concordance invariants, tau and s, differ. The Hedden-Ording examples have nontrivial Alexander polynomials and are not topologically slice.…
This paper is the second part of our comprehensive study on the braid index problem of pretzel links. Our ultimate goal is to completely determine the braid indices of all pretzel links, alternating or non alternating. In our approach, we…
We describe an algorithm to find ribbon disks for alternating knots, and the results of a computer implementation of this algorithm. The algorithm is underlain by a slice link obstruction coming from Donaldson's diagonalisation theorem. It…
There is an infinitely generated free subgroup of the smooth knot concordance group with the property that no nontrivial element in this subgroup can be represented by an alternating knot. This subgroup has the further property that every…
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.…
We give a first example of 2-knots with the same knot group but different knot quandles by analyzing the knot quandles of twist spins. As a byproduct of the analysis, we also give a classification of all twist spins with finite knot…
We give a useful classification of the metabelian unitary representations of pi_1(M_K), where M_K is the result of zero-surgery along a knot K in S^3. We show that certain eta invariants associated to metabelian representations pi_1(M_K)…
We show that nontrivial classical pretzel knots L(p,q,r) are hyperbolic with eight exceptions which are torus knots. We find Conway polynomials of n-pretzel links using a new computation tree. As applications, we compute the genera of…
The paper develops a general theory of orderability of quandles with a focus on link quandles of tame links and gives some general constructions of orderable quandles. We prove that knot quandles of many fibered prime knots are…
These notes were prepared to accompany a sequence of three lectures at the conference Winterbraids XI in Dijon, held in December 2021. In them, we provide an introduction to slice knots and the equivalence relation of concordance. We…