Related papers: Trisections and link surgeries

In this paper we investigate the relationship between isotopy classes of knots and links in S^3 and the diffeomorphism types of homeomorphic smooth 4-manifolds. As a corollary of this initial investigation, we begin to uncover the…

Tied links and the tied braid monoid were introduced recently by the authors and used to define new invariants for classical links. Here, we give a version purely algebraic-combinatoric of tied links. With this new version we prove that the…

This is an expository account of the author's collaboration with Rob Kirby leading up to the theory of trisections of smooth 4-manifolds. This article was written for inclusion in an upcoming issue of Celebratio Mathematica dedicated to Rob…

We show that if $p/q$-surgery on a nontrivial knot $K$ yields the branched double cover of an alternating knot or link, then $|p/q|\leq 4g(K)+3$. This generalises a bound for lens space surgeries first established by Rasmussen. We also show…

It is conjectured that every cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold admits a geometric triangulation, i.e. it is decomposed into positive volume ideal hyperbolic tetrahedra. Here, we show that sufficiently highly twisted knots admit a geometric…

We show how the theory of tangles is equivalent to that of well-connected tangles. These are drawn on a surface with boundary, and equivalent via Reidemeister moves of a restricted kind. This reworking of the graphical foundations for link…

We use technology from sutured manifold theory and the theory of Heegaard splittings to relate genus reducing crossing changes on knots in S^3 to twists on surfaces arising in circular Heegaard splittings for knot complements. In a separate…

We construct analogs of Khovanov-Jacobsson classes and the Rasmussen invariant for links in the boundary of any smooth oriented 4-manifold. The main tools are skein lasagna modules based on equivariant and deformed versions of…

By use of a variety of techniques (most based on constructions of quasipositive knots and links, some old and others new), many smooth 3-manifolds are realized as transverse intersections of complex surfaces in complex 3-space with strictly…

In this paper we investigate the question of when different surgeries on a knot can produce identical manifolds. We show that given a knot in a homology sphere, unless the knot is quite special, there is a bound on the number of slopes that…

In the paper \cite{wall_1}, C.T.C. Wall proved that two smooth closed simply connected 4-manifolds which are homeomorphic are in fact stably diffeomorphic. We prove a similar result which states that two smooth closed 4-manifolds satisfying…

We show that simple coverings of B^4 branched over ribbon surfaces up to certain local ribbon moves bijectively represent orientable 4-dimensional 2-handlebodies up to handle sliding and addition/deletion of cancelling handles. As a…

This largely technical paper is divided into two parts: part I: An account of P. Ozsvath and Z. Szabo's construction of the link surgery spectral sequence. There are no new results here, but this part slightly modifies and expands their…

We show that three natural decision problems about links and 3-manifolds are computationally hard, assuming some conjectures in complexity theory. The first problem is determining whether a link in the 3-sphere bounds a Seifert surface with…

In this article we construct a family of knot surgery $4$-manifolds admitting arbitrarily many nonisomorphic Lefschetz fibration structures with the same genus fiber. We obtain such families by performing knot surgery on an elliptic surface…

We study lens space surgeries along two different families of 2-component links, denoted by $A_{m,n}$ and $B_{p,q}$, related with the rational homology 4-ball used in J.\ Park's (generalized) rational blow down. We determine which…

We introduce the concept of a bridge trisection of a neatly embedded surface in a compact four-manifold, generalizing previous work with Alexander Zupan in the setting of closed surfaces in closed four-manifolds. Our main result states that…

We consider the question of when a slice knot admits a reducible Dehn surgery. By analyzing the correction terms associated to such a surgery, we show that slice knots cannot admit surgeries with more than two summands. We also give a…

We offer a new proof that two closed oriented 4-manifolds are cobordant if their signatures agree, in the spirit of Lickorish's proof that all closed oriented 3-manifolds bound 4-manifolds. Where Lickorish uses Heegaard splittings we use…

We study the effect of surgery on transverse knots in contact 3-manifolds. In particular, we investigate the effect of such surgery on open books, the Heegaard Floer contact invariant, and tightness. The overarching theme of this paper is…