Related papers: Comparing 4-Manifolds in the Pants Complex via Tri…

We define a pants distance for knotted surfaces in 4-manifolds which generalizes the complexity studied by Blair-Campisi-Taylor-Tomova for surfaces in the 4-sphere. We determine that if the distance computed on a given diagram does not…

We study trisections of 4-manifolds obtained by spinning and twist-spinning 3-manifolds, and we show that, given a (suitable) Heegaard diagram for the 3-manifold, one can perform simple local modifications to obtain a trisection diagram for…

This is the first in a series of papers where we will derive invariants of three-manifolds and framed knots in them from the geometry of a manifold pseudotriangulation put in some way in a four-dimensional Euclidean space. Thus, the…

We show that every smooth, orientable, closed, connected 4-manifold can be represented by a loop in the pants complex. We use this representation, together with the fact that the pants complex is simply connected, to provide an elementary…

We define integral measures of complexity for Heegaard splittings based on the graph dual to the curve complex and on the pants complex defined by Hatcher and Thurston. As the Heegaard splitting is stabilized, the sequence of complexities…

We study complexities of 3-manifolds defined from triangulations, Heegaard splittings, and surgery presentations. We show that these complexities are related by linear inequalities, by presenting explicit geometric constructions. We also…

We establish a correspondence between trisections of smooth, compact, oriented $4$--manifolds with connected boundary and diagrams describing these trisected $4$--manifolds. Such a diagram comes in the form of a compact, oriented surface…

Gay and Kirby recently introduced the concept of a trisection for arbitrary smooth, oriented closed 4-manifolds, and with it a new topological invariant, called the trisection genus. This paper improves and implements an algorithm due to…

We study trisections of smooth, compact non-orientable 4-manifolds, and introduce trisections of non-orientable 4-manifolds with boundary. In particular, we prove a non-orientable analogue of a classical theorem of Laudenbach-Po\'enaru. As…

A pants-block decomposition of a 3-manifold is similar to a triangulation of a 3-manifold in many aspects. In this paper we show that any two pants-block decompositions of a 3-manifold are related by a finite sequence of moves which are…

Recently Gay and Kirby described a new decomposition of smooth closed $4$-manifolds called a trisection. This paper generalises Heegaard splittings of $3$-manifolds and trisections of $4$-manifolds to all dimensions, using triangulations as…

Using tropical geometry, Mikhalkin has proved that every smooth complex hypersurface in $\mathbb{CP}^{n+1}$ decomposes into pairs of pants: a pair of pants is a real compact $2n$-manifold with cornered boundary obtained by removing an open…

I review some recent results on four-manifold invariants which have been obtained in the context of topological quantum field theory. I focus on three different aspects: (a) the computation of correlation functions, which give explicit…

Generalized Donaldson invariants of 4-manifolds are defined, using moduli spaces of anti-self-dual connections with structure group SU(N) or PSU(N). Some values of the invariants are calculated for the case that the 4-manifold arises by the…

A version of Kirby calculus for spin and framed three-manifolds is given and is used to construct invariants of spin and framed three-manifolds in two situations. The first is ribbon *-categories which possess odd degenerate objects. This…

Gay and Kirby introduced the notion of a trisection of a smooth 4-manifold, which is a decomposition of the 4-manifold into three elementary pieces. Rubinstein and Tillmann later extended this idea to construct multisections of…

This is a survey article about the connections between knot theory and four-dimensional topology. Every four-manifold can be represented in terms of a link, by a Kirby diagram. This point of view has led to progress in computing invariants…

Work of numerous authors has shown that any smooth, orientable, closed 4-manifold may be described as a loop of Morse functions on a surface, a loop in the cut complex, a loop in the pants complex, or as a multisection. In this paper, we…

An obstruction theory for representing homotopy classes of surfaces in 4-manifolds by immersions with pairwise disjoint images is developed, using the theory of non-repeating Whitney towers. The accompanying higher-order intersection…

Gay and Kirby introduced trisections which describe any closed oriented smooth 4-manifold $X$ as a union of three four-dimensional handlebodies. A trisection is encoded in a diagram, namely three collections of curves in a closed oriented…