Related papers: Filling braided links with trisected surfaces
We define the notion of a braided link cobordism in $S^3 \times [0,1]$, which generalizes Viro's closed surface braids in $\mathbb{R}^4$. We prove that any properly embedded oriented surface $W \subset S^3 \times [0,1]$ is isotopic to a…
The spine of a trisected 4-manifold is a singular 3-dimensional set from which the trisection itself can be reconstructed. 3-manifolds embedded in the trisected 4--manifold can often be isotoped to lie almost or entirely in the spine of the…
We seek to connect ideas in the theory of bridge trisections with other well-studied facets of classical knotted surface theory. First, we show how the normal Euler number can be computed from a tri-plane diagram, and we use this to give a…
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…
Suppose $K$ is a knot in a closed 3-manifold $M$ such that $\bar{M-N(K)}$ is irreducible. We show that for any positive integer $b$ there exists a triangulation of $\bar{M-N(K)}$ such that any weakly incompressible bridge surface for $K$ of…
We consider closed acylindrical surfaces in 3-manifolds and in knot and link complements, and show that the genus of these surfaces is bounded linearly by the number of tetrahedra in the triangulation of the manifold and by the number of…
Given a smooth, compact four-manifold $X$ viewed as a cobordism from the empty set to its connected boundary, we demonstrate how to use the data of a trisection map $\pi:X^{4} \to \mathbb{D}^{2}$ to compute the induced cobordism maps on…
Let M be a compressionbody containing a graph T (with at least one edge) such that \boundary_+ M is parallel to the union of T and \boundary_- M. We extend methods of Hayashi and Shimokawa to classify bridge surfaces for T. The results of…
The idea of studying trisections of closed smooth $4$-manifolds via (singular) triangulations, endowed with a suitable vertex-labelling by three colors, is due to Bell, Hass, Rubinstein and Tillmann, and has been applied by Spreer and…
A simplified trisection is a trisection map on a 4-manifold such that, in its critical value set, there is no double point and cusps only appear in triples on innermost fold circles. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a…
In this note, we provide a generalization for the definition of a trisection of a 4-manifold with boundary. We demonstrate the utility of this more general definition by finding a trisection diagram for the Cacime Surface, and also by…
Gay and Kirby introduced trisections which describe any closed oriented smooth 4-manifold $X$ as a union of three four-dimensional handlebodies. A trisection is encoded in a diagram, namely three collections of curves in a closed oriented…
We give a new characterization of symplectic surfaces in CP^2 via bridge trisections. Specifically, a minimal genus surface in CP^2 is smoothly isotopic to a symplectic surface if and only if it is smoothly isotopic to a surface in…
We adapt work of Kirby-Thompson and Zupan to define an integer invariant $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{T})$ of a bridge trisection $\mathcal{T}$ of a smooth surface $\mathcal{K}$ in $S^4$ or $B^4$. We show that when $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{T})=0$,…
We extend the notion of thin multiple Heegaard splittings of a link in a 3-manifold to take into consideration not only compressing disks but also cut-disks for the Heegaard surfaces. We prove that if H is a c-strongly compressible bridge…
Let $X^4$ and $Y^4$ be smooth manifolds and $f: X\to Y$ a branched cover with branching set $B$. Classically, if $B$ is smoothly embedded in $Y$, the signature $\sigma(X)$ can be computed from data about $Y$, $B$ and the local degrees of…
Algorithms that decompose a manifold into simple pieces reveal the geometric and topological structure of the manifold, showing how complicated structures are constructed from simple building blocks. This note describes a way to…
We prove that if $L$ is a non-trivial alternating link embedded (without crossings) in a closed surface $F\subset S^3$, then $F$ has a compressing disk whose boundary intersects $L$ in no more than two points. Moreover, whenever the surface…
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…
We introduce a new standard form of a Seifert surface $F$. In that standard form, $F$ is obtained by successively plumbing flat annuli to a disk $D$, where the gluing regions are all in $D$. We show that any link has a Seifert surface in…