Related papers: Non-orientable slice surfaces and inscribed rectan…
In formulating a non-orientable analogue of the Milnor Conjecture on the $4$-genus of torus knots, Batson developed an elegant construction that produces a smooth non-orientable spanning surface in $B^4$ for a given torus knot in $S^3$.…
The nonorientable four-ball genus of a knot $K$ in $S^3$ is the minimal first Betti number of nonorientable surfaces in $B^4$ bounded by $K$. By amalgamating ideas from involutive knot Floer homology and unoriented knot Floer homology, we…
Expanding on work by Conway, Orson, and Powell, we study the isotopy classes rel. boundary of nonorientable, compact, locally flatly embedded surfaces in $D^4$ with knot group $\mathbb{Z}_2$. In particular we show that if two such surfaces…
The nonorientable 4-genus is an invariant of knots which has been studied by many authors, including Gilmer and Livingston, Batson, and Ozsv\'{a}th, Stipsicz, and Szab\'{o}. Given a nonorientable surface $F \subset B^4$ with $\partial F =…
The non-orientable 4-genus of a knot $K$ in $S^{3}$, denoted $\gamma_4(K)$, measures the minimum genus of a non-orientable surface in $B^{4}$ bounded by $K$. We compute bounds for the non-orientable 4-genus of knots $T_{5, q}$ and $T_{6,…
We show that the torus knot $T_{4,9}$ bounds a smooth M\"obius band in the $4$-ball, giving a counterexample to Batson's non-orientable analogue of Milnor's conjecture on the smooth slice genera of torus knots.
This paper studies properly embedded surfaces in the 4-ball that are exotically knotted (i.e., topologically but not smoothly isotopic), and leverages this local phenomenon to study surfaces in larger 4-manifolds. The main results provide a…
Given a nonorientable, locally flatly embedded surface in the $4$-sphere of nonorientable genus $h$, Massey showed that the normal Euler number lies in $\lbrace -2h,-2h+4,\ldots,2h-4,2h \rbrace$. We prove that every such surface with knot…
We use Batson's lower bound on the nonorientable slice genus of $(2n,2n-1)$-torus knots to prove that for any $n \geq 2$, every smooth Jordan curve has an inscribed rectangle of of aspect ratio $\tan(\frac{\pi k}{2n})$ for some $k\in…
The nonorientable four-ball genus of a knot K is the smallest first Betti number of any smoothly embedded, nonorientable surface F in B^4 bounding K. In contrast to the orientable four-ball genus, which is bounded below by the Murasugi…
Given a closed four-manifold $X$ with an indefinite intersection form, we consider smoothly embedded surfaces in $X \setminus $int$(B^4)$, with boundary a knot $K \subset S^3$. We give several methods to bound the genus of such surfaces in…
We construct examples of non-smoothable surfaces in the $4$-sphere, thereby answering Question 4.32 on the K3 problem list. These surfaces are non-orientable and have knot group of order $2$, thus simultaneously answering Question 4.29(a)…
The non-orientable 4-genus of a knot K in the three sphere is defined to be the minimum first Betti number of a non-orientable surface F in the four-ball so that K bounds F. We will survey the tools used to compute the non-orientable…
We consider free symmetries on cobordisms between knots. We classify which freely periodic knots bound equivariant surfaces in the 4-ball in terms of corresponding homology classes in lens spaces. A key tool is the homology cobordism…
The nonorientable 4-genus $\gamma_4(K)$ of a knot $K$ is the smallest first Betti number of any nonorientable surface properly embedded in the 4-ball, and bounding the knot $K$. We study a conjecture proposed by Batson about the value of…
We investigate constraints on embeddings of a non-orientable surface in a $4$-manifold with the homology of $M \times I$, where $M$ is a rational homology $3$-sphere. The constraints take the form of inequalities involving the genus and…
We develop obstructions to a knot K in the 3-sphere bounding a smooth punctured Klein bottle in the 4-ball. The simplest of these is based on the linking form of the 2-fold branched cover of the 3-sphere branched over K. Stronger…
We consider homologically essential simple closed curves on Seifert surfaces of genus one knots in $S^3$, and in particular those that are unknotted or slice in $S^3$. We completely characterize all such curves for most twist knots: they…
We answer a question of Livingston from 1982 by producing Seifert surfaces of the same genus for a knot in $S^3$ that do not become isotopic when their interiors are pushed into $B^4$. In particular, we identify examples where the surfaces…
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…