Related papers: Some conditionally hard problems on links and 3-ma…

We show the problem of counting homomorphisms from the fundamental group of a homology $3$-sphere $M$ to a finite, non-abelian simple group $G$ is #P-complete, in the case that $G$ is fixed and $M$ is the computational input. Similarly,…

Fix a finite group $G$. We analyze the computational complexity of the problem of counting homomorphisms $\pi_1(X) \to G$, where $X$ is a topological space treated as computational input. We are especially interested in requiring $G$ to be…

We introduce a natural-valued complexity c(X) for pairs X=(M,L), where M is a closed orientable 3-manifold and L is a link contained in M. The definition employs simple spines, but for well-behaved X's we show that c(X) equals the minimal…

We investigate rational homology cobordisms of 3-manifolds with non-zero first Betti number. This is motivated by the natural generalization of the slice-ribbon conjecture to multicomponent links. In particular we consider the problem of…

We prove that a version of the Thurston-Bennequin inequality holds for Legendrian and transverse links in a rational homology contact 3-sphere $(M,\xi)$, whenever $\xi$ is tight. More specifically, we show that the self-linking number of a…

Let $G$ be a complete edge-weighted graph on $n$ vertices. To each subset of vertices of $G$ assign the cost of the minimum spanning tree of the subset as its weight. Suppose that $n$ is a multiple of some fixed positive integer $k$. The…

We consider closed acylindrical surfaces in 3-manifolds and in knot and link complements, and show that the genus of these surfaces is bounded linearly by the number of tetrahedra in the triangulation of the manifold and by the number of…

We revisit the minimum-link path problem: Given a polyhedral domain and two points in it, connect the points by a polygonal path with minimum number of edges. We consider settings where the vertices and/or the edges of the path are…

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…

We show that the following algorithmic problem is decidable: given a $2$-dimensional simplicial complex, can it be embedded (topologically, or equivalently, piecewise linearly) in $\mathbf{R}^3$? By a known reduction, it suffices to decide…

Suppose there are two framed links in a compact, connected 3-manifold (possibly with boundary, or non-orientable) such that the associated 3-manifolds obtained by surgery are homeomorphic (relative to their common boundary, if there is…

We answer the following question posed by Lechuga: Given a simply-connected space $X$ with both $H_*(X,\qq)$ and $\pi_*(X)\otimes \qq$ being finite-dimensional, what is the computational complexity of an algorithm computing the cup-length…

We prove that fundamental groups of non-orientable 3-manifolds have a solvable conjugacy problem, and construct an algorithm. Together with our earlier work on the conjugacy problem in groups on orientable geometrizable 3-manifolds, all…

In this paper we prove that the problem of deciding contractibility of an arbitrary closed curve on the boundary of a 3-manifold is in NP. We emphasize that the manifold and the curve are both inputs to the problem. Moreover, our algorithm…

The Nielsen Conjecture for Homeomorphisms asserts that any homeomorphism $f$ of a closed manifold is isotopic to a map realizing the Nielsen number of $f$, which is a lower bound for the number of fixed points among all maps homotopic to…

In this article, we investigate the higher topological complexity of oriented Seifert fibered manifolds that are Eilenberg--MacLane spaces $K(G,1)$ with infinite fundamental group $G$. We first refine the cohomological lower bounds for…

We study closed orientable manifolds whose topological complexity is at most 3 and determine their cohomology rings. For some of admissible cohomology rings we are also able to identify corresponding manifolds up to homeomorphism.

The 3SUM problem represents a class of problems conjectured to require $\Omega (n^2)$ time to solve, where $n$ is the size of the input. Given two polygons $P$ and $Q$ in the plane, we show that some variants of the decision problem,…

We show that determining the crossing number of a link is NP-hard. For some weaker notions of link equivalence, we also show NP-completeness.

We obtain new invariants of topological link concordance and homology cobordism of 3-manifolds from Hirzebruch-type intersection form defects of towers of iterated p-covers. Our invariants can extract geometric information from an arbitrary…