Related papers: Knotted surfaces as vanishing sets of polynomials

We take the fundamental group of the complement of the branch curve of a generic projection induced from canonical embedding of a surface. This group is stable on connected components of moduli spaces of surfaces. Since for many classes of…

We consider finite-sheeted, regular, possibly branched covering spaces of compact surfaces with boundary and the associated liftable and symmetric mapping class groups. In particular, we classify when either of these subgroups coincides…

We study the set of algebraic objects known as vanishing polynomials (the set of polynomials that annihilate all elements of a ring) over general commutative rings with identity. These objects are of special interest due to their close…

We construct ribbon surfaces of Euler characteristic one for several infinite families of alternating 3-braid closures. We also use a twisted Alexander polynomial obstruction to conclude the classification of smoothly slice knots which are…

Let $\mathbb{R}$ be the field of real numbers. We consider the problem of computing the real isolated points of a real algebraic set in $\mathbb{R}^n$ given as the vanishing set of a polynomial system. This problem plays an important role…

Branch points of a real 2-surface S in a 4-manifold M generalize the branch points of complex curves in complex surfaces: for example, they can occur as singularities of minimal surfaces. We investigate such a branch point p when S is…

This article is concerned with locally flatly immersed surfaces in simply-connected $4$-manifolds where the complement of the surface has fundamental group $\mathbb{Z}$. Once the genus and number of double points are fixed, we classify such…

We introduce new polynomial isotopy invariants for closed braids. They are constructed as polynomial valued {\em Gauss diagram 1-cocycles} evaluated on the full rotation of the closed braid $\hat \beta$ around the core of the corresponding…

This is a review article on the Bennequin-Birman-Menasco machinery for studying embedded incompressible surfaces in 3-space via their `braid foliations'. Two cases are investigated: case (1) The surface has non-empty boundary; the boundary…

We consider sparse polynomials in $N$ variables over a finite field, and ask whether they vanish on a set $S^N$, where $S$ is a set of nonzero elements of the field. We see that if for a polynomial $f$, there is $\mathbf{c}\in S^N$ with $f…

Our main result has topological, combinatorial and computational flavor. It is motivated by a fundamental conjecture stating that computing Khovanov homology of a closed braid of fixed number of strands has polynomial time complexity. We…

The disjoint union of mapping class groups of surfaces forms a braided monoidal category $\mathcal M$, as the disjoint union of the braid groups $\mathcal B$ does. We give a concrete, and geometric meaning of the braiding $\beta_{r,s}$ in…

The square of a graph $G$, denoted by $G^2$, is obtained from $G$ by putting an edge between two distinct vertices whenever their distance is two. Then $G$ is called a square root of $G^2$. Deciding whether a given graph has a square root…

In this paper we present recent results on the computation of skein modules of 3-manifolds using braids and appropriate knot algebras. Skein modules generalize knot polynomials in $S^3$ to knot polynomials in arbitrary 3-manifolds and they…

We present the formula for the number of monic irreducible polynomials of degree $n$ over the finite field $\mathbb F_q$ where the coefficients of $x^{n-1}$ and $x$ vanish for $n\ge3$. In particular, we give a relation between rational…

In this article, we propose a new approach for describing and understanding knots and links in a 3-manifold through the use of an embedded non-orientable surface. Specifically, we define a plat-like representation based on this…

We present a complete classification of spherical knotoids with up to six crossings and conjecture that our classification up to seven crossings is complete. Our work extends the tradition of knot tabulation to the setting of knotoids…

In this paper we study embeddings of oriented connected closed surfaces in $\mathbb S^3$. We define a complete invariant, the fundamental span, for such embeddings, generalizing the notion of the peripheral system of a knot group. From the…

Inferring probabilistic networks from data is a notoriously difficult task. Under various goodness-of-fit measures, finding an optimal network is NP-hard, even if restricted to polytrees of bounded in-degree. Polynomial-time algorithms are…

We present subquadratic algorithms, in the algebraic decision-tree model of computation, for detecting whether there exists a triple of points, belonging to three respective sets $A$, $B$, and $C$ of points in the plane, that satisfy a…