Related papers: Shake Slice and Shake Concordant Links
We study the equivariant concordance classes of two-bridge knots, providing an easy formula to compute their butterfly polynomial, and we give two different proofs that no two-bridge knot is equivariantly slice. Finally, we introduce a new…
We introduce new skein invariants of links based on a procedure where we first apply the skein relation only to crossings of distinct components, so as to produce collections of unlinked knots. We then evaluate the resulting knots using a…
For each integer $n\ge 2$, we construct infinitely many $n$-component Brunnian links of 3-balls in $S^4$. Our main tool is the third author's result on the existence of splitting spheres for the trivial two-component link of $2$-spheres in…
We study the eta-invariants of links and show that in many cases they form link concordance invariants, in particular that many eta-invariants vanish for slice links. This result contains and generalizes previous invariants by Smolinsky and…
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.…
The knot Floer complex and the concordance invariant $\varepsilon$ can be used to define a filtration on the smooth concordance group. We exhibit an ordered subset of this filtration that is isomorphic to $\mathbb{N} \times \mathbb{N}$ and…
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…
Milnor's $\bar{\mu}$-invariants of links in the $3$-sphere $S^3$ vanish on any link concordant to a boundary link. In particular, they are trivial on any knot in $S^3$. Here we consider knots in thickened surfaces $\Sigma \times [0,1]$,…
In this paper, we define a lassoing on a link, a local addition of a trivial knot to a link. Let K be an s-component link with the Conway polynomial non-zero. Let L be a link which is obtained from K by r-iterated lassoings. The complete…
We prove that all knots with unknotting number at most 21 are smoothly slice in the K3 surface. We also prove a more general statement for 4-manifolds that contain a plumbing tree of spheres. Our strategy is based on a flexible method to…
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…
This paper describes the relationship between the first non-vanishing Milnor invariants of a classical link and the intersection invariant of a twisted Whitney tower. This is a certain 2-complex in the 4-ball, built from immersed disks…
Meier and Zupan showed that every surface in the four-sphere admits a bridge trisection and can therefore be represented by three simple tangles. This raises the possibility of applying methods from link homology to knotted surfaces. We use…
It is known that every compact Stein 4-manifolds can be embedded into a simply connected, minimal, closed, symplectic 4-manifold. By using this property, we discuss a new method of constructing corks. This method generates a large class of…
A connected graph G with at least two vertices is matching covered if each of its edges lies in a perfect matching. We say that an edge e in a matching covered graph G is removable if G-e is matching covered. A pair {e; f} of edges of a…
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…
We present three large families of new examples of plumbed 3-manifolds that bound rational homology 4-balls. These are constructed using two operations, also defined here, that preserve the lack of a lattice embedding obstruction to…
We define several equivariant concordance invariants using knot Floer homology. We show that our invariants provide a lower bound for the equivariant slice genus and use this to give a family of strongly invertible slice knots whose…
For n >1, if the Seifert form of a knotted 2n-1 sphere K in S^{2n+1} has a metabolizer, then the knot is slice. Casson and Gordon proved that this is false in dimension three (n = 1). However, in the three dimensional case it is true that…
In this article we conjecture a 4-dimensional characterization of tightness: a contact structure is tight if and only if a slice-Bennequin inequality holds for smoothly embedded surfaces in Yx[0,1]. An affirmative answer to our conjecture…