Related papers: Unknotting 3-balls in the 5-ball

We give a short proof of Bing's characterization of $S^3$: a compact, connected 3-manifold $M$ is $S^3$ if and only if every knot in $M$ is isotopic into a ball.

We give a short, simple and conceptual proof, based on spin structures, of sphere eversion: an embedded 2-sphere in $R^3$ can be turned inside out by regular homotopy. Ingredients of this eversion are seamlessly connected. We also give the…

Regular homotopy classes of immersions of a 3-sphere in 5-space constitute an infinite cyclic group. The classes containing embeddings form a subgroup of index 24. The obstruction for a generic immersion to be regularly homotopic to an…

The classical Poincar{\'e} conjecture that every homotopy 3-sphere is diffeomorphic to the 3-sphere is confirmed by Perelman in arXiv papers solving Thurston's program on geometrizations of 3-manifolds. A new confirmation of this conjecture…

We construct infinitely many smooth oriented 4-manifolds containing pairs of homotopic, smoothly embedded 2-spheres that are not topologically isotopic, but that are equivalent by an ambient diffeomorphism inducing the identity on homology.…

We give the first examples of a pair of knots $K_1$,$K_2$ in the 3-sphere for which their unknotting numbers satisfy $u(K_1\#K_2)<u(K_1)+u(K_2)$ . This answers question 1.69(B) from Kirby's problem list, "Problems in low-dimensional…

We show that the following algorithmic problem is decidable: given a $2$-dimensional simplicial complex, can it be embedded (topologically, or equivalently, piecewise linearly) in $\mathbf{R}^3$? By a known reduction, it suffices to decide…

Let $LHT$ be a left handed trefoil knot and $K$ be any knot. We define $M_n(K)$ to be the homology $3$-sphere which is represented by a simple link of $LHT$ and $LHT \sharp K$ with framings $0$ and $n$ respectively. Starting with this link,…

We prove that all knots with unknotting number at most 21 are smoothly slice in the K3 surface. We also prove a more general statement for 4-manifolds that contain a plumbing tree of spheres. Our strategy is based on a flexible method to…

We show that any two same-genus, oriented, boundary parallel surfaces bounded by a non-split, alternating link into the 4-ball are smoothly isotopic fixing boundary. In other words, any same-genus Seifert surfaces for a non-split,…

Examples are given to show that some compact contractible 4-manifolds can be knotted in the 4-sphere. It is then proved that any finitely presented perfect group with a balanced presentation is a knot group for an embedding of some…

A necessary and sufficient algebraic condition for a diffeomorphism over a surface embedded in the 3-sphere to be induced by a regular homotopic deformation is discussed, and a formula for the number of signed pass moves needed for this…

A knotted surface in the 4-sphere may be described by means of a hyperbolic diagram that captures the 0-section of a special Morse function, called a hyperbolic decomposition. We show that every hyperbolic decomposition of a knotted surface…

We generalise theorems of Khodorovskiy and Park-Park-Shin, and give new topological proofs of those theorems, using embedded surfaces in the 4-ball and branched double covers. These theorems exhibit smooth codimension-zero embeddings of…

Whitney's theorem states that every 3-connected planar graph is uniquely embeddable on the sphere. On the other hand, it has many inequivalent embeddings on another surface. We shall characterize structures of a $3$-connected $3$-regular…

We show that the smooth homotopy 4-sphere obtained by Gluck twisting the m-twist n-roll spin of any unknotting number one knot is diffeomorphic to the standard 4-sphere, for any pair of integers (m,n). It follows as a corollary that an…

A very fundamental geometric problem on finite systems of spheres was independently phrased by Kneser (1955) and Poulsen (1954). According to their well-known conjecture if a finite set of balls in Euclidean space is repositioned so that…

We conjecture two generalisations of Elkies' theorem on unimodular quadratic forms to non-unimodular forms. We give some evidence for these conjectures including a result for determinant 3. These conjectures, when combined with results of…

Using 1-twist rim surgery, we construct infinitely many smoothly embedded, orientable surfaces in the 4-ball bounding a knot in the 3-sphere that are pairwise topologically isotopic, but not ambient diffeomorphic. We distinguish the…

We prove that given two compact oriented $3$-manifolds $N$ and $M,$ with $M$ satisfying only a mild hypothesis, there is a hyperbolic $3$-manifold $N'$ arbitrarily ``closely related'' to $N,$ and such that $N'$ does not embed in $M.$ For…