Related papers: Shake genus and slice genus
We work in the smooth category. Let $N$ be a closed connected orientable 4-manifold with torsion free $H_1$, where $H_q := H_q(N; \mathbb Z)$. Our main result is a readily calculable classification of embeddings $N\to\mathbb R^7$ up to…
One strategy for distinguishing smooth structures on closed $4$-manifolds is to produce a knot $K$ in $S^3$ that is slice in one smooth filling $W$ of $S^3$ but not slice in some homeomorphic smooth filling $W'$. In this paper we explore…
Turaev defined a function on the first homology of a rational homology 3-sphere $Y$ as the minimal rational Seifert genus of all knots in this homology class. Ni and the first author discovered a lower bound of this function using the…
Let N be a closed irreducible 3-manifold and assume N is not a graph manifold. We improve for all but finitely many S^1-bundles M over N the adjunction inequality for the minimal complexity of embedded surfaces. This allows us to completely…
We use the Blanchfield form to obtain a lower bound on the equivariant slice genus of a strongly invertible knot. For our main application, let $K$ be a genus one strongly invertible slice knot with nontrivial Alexander polynomial. We show…
We introduce a new spectral sequence for the study of $\mathcal{K}$-manifolds which arises by restricting the spectral sequence of a Riemannian foliation to forms invariant under the flows of $\{\xi_1,...,\xi_s\}$. We use this sequence to…
We define a Rasmussen $s$-invariant over the coefficient ring of the integers, and show how it is related to the $s$-invariants defined over a field. A lower bound for the slice genus of a knot arising from it is obtained, and we give…
We study smooth proper embeddings of compact orientable surfaces in compact orientable $4$-manifolds and elements in the mapping class group of that surface which are induced by diffeomorphisms of the ambient $4$-manifolds. We call such…
We show that the Khovanov-Rozansky $\mathfrak{gl}_2$ skein lasagna module distinguishes the exotic pair of knot traces $X_{-1}(-5_2)$ and $X_{-1}(P(3,-3,-8))$, an example first discovered by Akbulut. This gives the first analysis-free proof…
We define Casson-Gordon sigma-invariants for links and give a lower bound of the slice genus of a link in terms of these invariants. We study as an example a family of two component links of genus h and show that their slice genus is h,…
We introduce and study the notion of equivariant $\mathbb{Q}$-sliceness for strongly invertible knots. On the constructive side, we prove that every Klein amphichiral knot, which is a strongly invertible knot admitting a compatible negative…
In this paper, the symplectic genus for any 2-dimensional class in a 4-manifold admitting a symplectic structure is introduced, and its relation with the minimal genus is studied. It is used to describe which classes in rational and…
We study the classification of slice disks of knots up to isotopy and diffeomorphism using an invariant in knot Floer homology. We compute the invariant of a slice disk obtained by deform-spinning, and show that it can be effectively used…
A link in the 3-sphere is homotopically trivial, according to Milnor, if its components bound disjoint maps of disks in the 4-ball. This paper concerns the question of what spaces give rise to the same class of homotopically trivial links…
We construct a number of topologically trivial but smoothly non-trivial families of embeddings of 3-manifolds in 4-manifolds. These include embeddings of homology spheres in $S^4$ that are not isotopic but have diffeomorphic complements,…
A geometric argument is given to prove that the Seifert genus of a positive knot equals its slice genus. A combinatorial invariant, giving a lower bound for the slice genus, is formulated for arbitrary knots. Properties and applications of…
In this paper we define and investigate Z/2-homology cobordism invariants of Z/2-homology 3-spheres which turn out to be related to classical invariants of knots. As an application we show that many lens spaces have infinite order in the…
We introduce a refinement of Bar-Natan homology for involutive links, extending the work of Lobb-Watson and Sano. We construct a new suite of numerical invariants and derive bounds for the genus of equivariant cobordisms between strongly…
We propose a way to derive polynomial invariants of closed, orientable $3$-manifolds from Heegaard diagrams via cellularly embedded graphs. Given a Heegaard diagram of an irreducible $3$-manifold $M$, we associate a Heegaard graph $G\subset…
A slice-torus invariant is an $\mathbb{R}$-valued homomorphism on the knot concordance group whose value gives a lower bound for the 4-genus such that the equality holds for any positive torus knot. Such invariants have been discovered in…