Related papers: Shadow-complexity and trisection genus

A shadow of a geometric object $A$ in a given direction $v$ is the orthogonal projection of $A$ on the hyperplane orthogonal to $v$. We show that any topological embedding of a circle into Euclidean $d$-space can have at most two shadows…

The Crane-Yetter state sum is an invariant of closed 4-manifolds, defined in terms of a triangulation, based on 15-j symbols associated to the category A of representations over quantum sl2 (at a root of unity). In this thesis, we define…

A special spine of a three-manifold is said to be poor if it does not contain proper simple subpolyhedra. Using the Turaev-Viro invariants, we establish that every compact three-dimensional manifold M with connected nonempty boundary has a…

Turaev Viro invariants are amongst the most powerful tools to distinguish 3-manifolds: They are implemented in mathematical software, and allow practical computations. The invariants can be computed purely combinatorially by enumerating…

We show that the Reshetikhin-Turaev-Walker invariant of 3-manifolds can be normalized to obtain an invariant of 4-dimensional thickenings of 2-complexes. Moreover when the underlying semisimple tortile category comes from the…

This work is motivated by two problems: 1) The approach of manifolds and spaces by triangulations. 2) The complexity growth in sequences of polyhedra. Considering both problems as related, new criteria and methods for approximating smooth…

For a 3-dimensional manifold $M^3$, its complexity $c(M^3)$, introduced by S.Matveev, is the minimal number of vertices of an almost simple spine of $M^3$; in many cases it is equal to the minimal number of tetrahedra in a singular…

In this article, we investigate the higher topological complexity of oriented Seifert fibered manifolds that are Eilenberg--MacLane spaces $K(G,1)$ with infinite fundamental group $G$. We first refine the cohomological lower bounds for…

We define a $\mathbb{Z}_2$-valued invariant for transversely-intersecting coassociative $4$-folds equipped with spin structures. Our main result shows this invariant provides an obstruction to separating two such coassociatives through a…

We introduce the concept of pseudo-trisections of smooth oriented compact 4-manifolds with boundary. The main feature of pseudo-trisections is that they have lower complexity than relative trisections for given 4-manifolds. We prove…

We prove that every smoothly embedded surface in a 4--manifold can be isotoped to be in bridge position with respect to a given trisection of the ambient 4--manifold; that is, after isotopy, the surface meets components of the trisection in…

This article provides the second part of the research initiated in arXiv:2411.17381, where we introduced and investigated so called periodicity shadows, which are special skew-symmetric matrices related to symmetric algebras with periodic…

A new topological invariant of closed connected orientable four-dimensional manifolds is proposed. The invariant, constructed via surgery on a special link, is a four-dimensional counterpart of the celebrated SU(2) three-manifold invariant…

Let $p$ be a branched covering of a Riemann surface to the Riemann sphere $\mathbb{P}^1$, with branching set $B \subset \mathbb{P}^1$. We define the complexity of $p$ as infinity, if $\mathbb{P}^1 \setminus B$ does not admit a hyperbolic…

In this note, we investigate the relation between double points and complex points of immersed surfaces in almost-complex 4-manifolds and show how estimates for the minimal genus of embedded surfaces lead to inequalities between the number…

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 use intersection theory techniques to define an invariant of closed 3-manifolds counting the characters of irreducible representations of the fundamental group in PSL(2,C). We note several properties of the invariant and compute the…

We define an invariant of graphs embedded in a three-manifold and a partition function for 2-complexes embedded in a triangulated four-manifold by specifying the values of variables in the Turaev-Viro and Crane-Yetter state sum models. In…

We find the exact values of complexity for an infinite series of 3-manifolds. Namely, by calculating hyperbolic volumes, we show that c(N_n)=2n, where $c$ is the complexity of a 3-manifold and N_n is the total space of the punctured torus…

Moser's shadow problem asks to estimate the shadow function $\mathfrak{s}_b(n)$, which is the largest number such that for each bounded convex polyhedron $P$ with $n$ vertices in $3$-space there is some direction ${\bf v}$ (depending on…