Related papers: A note on the concordance $\mathbb{Z}$-genus
The unknotting number of a knot is bounded from below by its slice genus. It is a well-known fact that the genera and unknotting numbers of torus knots coincide. In this note we characterize quasipositive knots for which the genus bound is…
The trace of $n$-framed surgery on a knot in $S^3$ is a 4-manifold homotopy equivalent to the 2-sphere. We characterise when a generator of the second homotopy group of such a manifold can be realised by a locally flat embedded 2-sphere…
Kuperberg [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 3 (2003) 587-591] has shown that a virtual knot corresponds (up to generalized Reidemeister moves) to a unique embedding in a thichened surface of minimal genus. If a virtual knot diagram is equivalent to a…
We consider the problem of deciding whether a polygonal knot in 3-dimensional Euclidean space is unknotted, capable of being continuously deformed without self-intersection so that it lies in a plane. We show that this problem, {\sc…
The concordance group of algebraically slice knots is the subgroup of the classical knot concordance group formed by algebraically slice knots. Results of Casson and Gordon and of Jiang showed that this group contains in infinitely…
We investigate the computational complexity of some problems in three-dimensional topology and geometry. We show that the problem of determining a bound on the genus of a knot in a 3-manifold, is NP-complete. Using similar ideas, we show…
We define Casson-Gordon sigma-invariants for links and give a lower bound of the slice genus of a link in terms of these invariants. We study as an example a family of two component links of genus h and show that their slice genus is h,…
We introduce a new technique for showing classical knots and links are not slice. As one application we resolve a long-standing question as to whether certain natural families of knots contain topologically slice knots. We also present a…
It is well known that there exist knots with Seifert surfaces of arbitrarily high genus. In this paper, we show the existence of infinitely many knot exteriors where each of which has longitudinal essential surfaces of any positive genus…
Symmetry of geometrical figures is reflected in regularities of their algebraic invariants. Algebraic regularities are often preserved when the geometrical figure is topologically deformed. The most natural, intuitively simple but…
In a lens space X of order r a knot K representing an element of the fundamental group pi_1 X = Z/rZ of order s <= r contains a connected orientable surface S properly embedded in its exterior X-N(K) such that the boundary of S intersects…
There are 352.2 million prime knots in the 3-sphere with at most 19 crossings. We study which of these knots are slice, in both the smooth and topological categories. While no algorithm is known for deciding whether a given knot is slice in…
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 =…
Physical knots and links are one-dimensional submanifolds of R^3 with fixed length and thickness. We show that isotopy classes in this category can differ from those of classical knot and link theory. In particular we exhibit a Gordian…
In this paper we show that even in the case of simply connected minimal algebraic surfaces of general type, deformation and differentiable equivalence do not coincide. Exhibiting several simple families of surfaces which are not deformation…
We prove the Lipman-Zariski conjecture for complex surface singularities with $p_g - g - b \le 2$. Here $p_g$ is the geometric genus, $g$ is the sum of the genera of the exceptional curves and $b$ is the first Betti number of the dual…
Two knots are homology concordant if they are smoothly concordant in a homology cobordism. The group $\hat{\mathcal{C}}_{\mathbb{Z}}$ (resp. $\mathcal{C}_{\mathbb{Z}}$) was previously defined as the set of knots in homology spheres that…
We construct a new family of knot concordance invariants $\theta^{(q)}(K)$, where $q$ is a prime number. Our invariants are obtained from the equivariant Seiberg-Witten-Floer cohomology, constructed by the author and Hekmati, applied to the…
We define a knot to be half ribbon if it is the cross-section of a ribbon 2-knot, and observe that ribbon implies half ribbon implies slice. We introduce the half ribbon genus of a knot K, the minimum genus of a ribbon knotted surface of…
The concordance orders of many algebraic order two knots of ten or fewer crossings have been heretofore unknown. We use Casson-Gordon invariants and twisted Alexander polynomials to find that, in all but one case, these knots do not have…