Related papers: Nonorientable surfaces bounded by knots: a geograp…

For any given finitely presented group G there exists a closed oriented 4-manifold with fundamental group G. What pairs of integers can occur as the signature and Euler characteristic of such a 4-manifold? The first part of this paper…

We establish inequalities that constrain the genera of smooth cobordisms between knots in 4-dimensional cobordisms. These "relative adjunction inequalities" improve the adjunction inequalities for closed surfaces which have been…

We describe a procedure for creating infinite families of hyperbolic knots having unique minimal genus Seifert surface. A large subset of these knots have the further property that the surface cannot be the sole compact leaf of a depth one…

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…

Twisting a knot $K$ in $S^3$ along a disjoint unknot $c$ produces a twist family of knots $\{K_n\}$ indexed by the integers. Comparing the behaviors of the Seifert genus $g(K_n)$ and the slice genus $g_4(K_n)$ under twistings, we prove that…

A Seifert surface F for a knot K is free if the complement of F is a handlebody (i.e., has free fundamental group). The free genus of K is the minimum genus among all free Seifert surfaces for K. In this paper we show that there exist…

We give a method for obtaining infinitely many framed knots which represent a diffeomorphic 4-manifold. We also study a relationship between the $n$-shake genus and the 4-ball genus of a knot. Furthermore we give a construction of homotopy…

This monograph derives direct and concrete relations between colored Jones polynomials and the topology of incompressible spanning surfaces in knot and link complements. Under mild diagrammatic hypotheses that arise naturally in the study…

We initiate the study of classical knots through the homotopy class of the n-th evaluation map of the knot, which is the induced map on the compactified n-point configuration space. Sending a knot to its n-th evaluation map realizes the…

We prove that if the order of the first homology of the 2-fold branched cover of a knot K in the 3-sphere is given by pm where p is a prime congruent to 3 mod 4 and gcd(p,m) =1, then K is of infinite order in the knot concordance group.…

We introduce a 4-dimensional analogue of the rational Seifert genus of a knot $K\subset Y$, which we call the rational slice genus, that measures the complexity of a homology class in $H_2(Y\times [0,1],K;\mathbb{Q})$. Our main theorem is a…

We are concerned with orderable groups and particularly those with orderings invariant not only under multiplication, but also under a given automorphism or family of automorphisms. Several applications to topology are given: we prove that…

We establish a version of Seiberg--Witten Floer $K$-theory for knots, as well as a version of Seiberg-Witten Floer $K$-theory for 3-manifolds with involution. The main theorems are 10/8-type inequalities for knots and for involutions. The…

We show that the problem of deciding whether a knot in a fixed closed orientable 3-dimensional manifold bounds a surface of genus at most $g$ is in co-NP. This answers a question of Agol, Hass, and Thurston in 2002. Previously, this was…

Vogel's universality gives a unified description of the adjoint sector of representation theory for simple Lie algebras in terms of three parameters $\alpha,\beta,\gamma$, which are homogeneous coordinates of Vogel's plane. It is associated…

We prove that each overtwisted contact structure has knot types that are represented by infinitely many distinct transverse knots all with the same self-linking number. In some cases, we can even classify all such knots. We also show…

We give an elementary obstruction to reducibility for knotted surfaces in the four-sphere. As a new application, we construct stably irreducible non-orientable surfaces.

We investigate several conjectures in geometric topology by assembling computer data obtained by studying weaving knots, a doubly infinite family $W(p,n)$ of examples of hyperbolic knots. In particular, we compute some important polynomial…

Ng constructed an invariant of knots in ${\mathbb{R}}^3$, a combinatorial knot contact homology. Extending his study, we construct an invariant of surface-knots in ${\mathbb{R}}^4$ using diagrams in ${\mathbb{R}}^3$.

While the problem of computing the genus of a knot is now fairly well understood, no algorithm is known for its four-dimensional variants, both in the smooth and in the topological locally flat category. In this article, we investigate a…