Related papers: Ribbon knots, cabling, and handle decompositions

Previous work of the authors establishes a criterion on the fundamental group of a knot complement that determines when Dehn surgery on the knot will have a fundamental group that is not left-orderable. We provide a refinement of this…

We present a new theory which describes the collection of all tunnels of tunnel number 1 knots in the 3-sphere (up to orientation-preserving equivalence in the sense of Heegaard splittings) using the disk complex of the genus-2 handlebody…

We use Heegaard Floer homology to give obstructions to unknotting a knot with a single crossing change. These restrictions are particularly useful in the case where the knot in question is alternating. As an example, we use them to classify…

We give lower bounds for the tunnel number of knots and handlebody-knots. We also give a lower bound for the cutting number, which is a "dual" notion to the tunnel number in the handlebody-knot theory. We provide necessary conditions for…

Let $M_n$ be the topological moduli space of all parallel n-cables of long framed oriented knots in 3-space. We construct in a combinatorial way for each natural number $n>1$ a 1-cocycle $R_n$ which represents a non trivial class in…

We consider the question of how many essential Seifert Klein bottles with common boundary slope a knot in S^3 can bound, up to ambient isotopy. We prove that any hyperbolic knot in S^3 bounds at most six Seifert Klein bottles with a given…

We report on new numerical computations of the set of self-contacts in tightly knotted tubes of uniform circular cross-section. Such contact sets have been obtained before for the trefoil and figure eight knots by simulated annealing -- we…

We study Kauffman's model of folded ribbon knots: knots made of a thin strip of paper folded flat in the plane. The folded ribbonlength is the length to width ratio of such a ribbon knot. We give upper bounds on the folded ribbonlength of…

We construct a filtered mapping cone formula that computes the knot Floer complex of the $(n,1)$--cable of the knot meridian in any rational surgery, generalizing Truong's result about the $(n,1)$--cable of the knot meridian in large…

The stick number of a knot is the minimum number of segments needed to build a polygonal version of the knot. Despite its elementary definition and relevance to physical knots, the stick number is poorly understood: for most knots we only…

The untwisting number of a knot K is the minimum number of null-homologous twists required to convert K to the unknot. Such a twist can be viewed as a generalization of a crossing change, since a classical crossing change can be effected by…

This paper gives mathematical models for flat knotted ribbons, and makes specific conjectures for the least length of ribbon (for a given width) needed to tie the trefoil knot and the figure eight knot. The first conjecture states that (for…

We show that every $\mathbb{Z}$-torsion free knot module is realized by a ribbon 2-knot with group of geometric dimension at most 2, and give some partial results on the characterization of the knot modules of fibred ribbon 2-knots.

Given a knot K in S^3, let u^-(K) (respectively, u^+(K)) denote the minimum number of negative (respectively, positive) crossing changes among all unknotting sequences for K. We use knot Floer homology to construct the invariants l^-(K),…

In this paper, we use Heegaard Floer homology to study reducible surgeries. In particular, suppose K is a non-cable knot in the three-sphere with an L-space surgery. If p-surgery on K is reducible, we show that p equals 2g(K)-1. This…

A knot in S^3 is said to have crosscap number two if it bounds a once-punctured Klein bottle but not a Moebius band. In this paper we give a method of constructing crosscap number two hyperbolic (1,2)-knots with tunnel number one which are…

We compute the knot Floer filtration induced by a cable of the meridian of a knot in the manifold obtained by large integer surgery along the knot. We give a formula in terms of the original knot Floer complex of the knot in the…

Lipshitz, Ozsv\'ath, and Thurston extend the theory of bordered Heegaard Floer homology to compute $\mathbf{CF}^-$. Like with the hat theory, their minus invariants provide a recipe to compute knot invariants associated to satellite knots.…

We give an obstruction to unknotting a knot by adding a twisted band, derived from Heegaard Floer homology.

We consider knots and links in handlebodies that have hyperbolic complements and operations akin to composition. Cutting the complements of two such open along separating twice-punctured disks such that each of the four resulting…