Related papers: How essential is a spanning surface?
We study a canonical spanning surface obtained from a knot or link diagram depending on a given Kauffman state, and give a sufficient condition for the surface to be essential. By using the essential surface, we can see the triviality and…
We propose a generalization of the classical notions of plumbing and Murasugi summing operations to smooth manifolds of arbitrary dimensions, so that in this general context Gabai's credo "the Murasugi sum is a natural geometric operation"…
Let $T$ be a graph in a compact, orientable 3--manifold $M$ and let $\Gamma$ be a subgraph. $T$ can be placed in bridge position with respect to a Heegaard surface $H$. We show that if $H$ is what we call $(T,\Gamma)$-c-weakly reducible in…
In this paper we study embeddings of oriented connected closed surfaces in $\mathbb S^3$. We define a complete invariant, the fundamental span, for such embeddings, generalizing the notion of the peripheral system of a knot group. From the…
Let $D$ be a cellular alternating link diagram on a closed orientable surface $\Sigma$. We prove that if $D$ has no removable nugatory crossings then each checkerboard surface from $D$ is $\pi_1$-essential and contains no essential closed…
The second author and Hara introduced the notion of an essential tribranched surface that is a generalisation of the notion of an essential embedded surface in a 3-manifold. We show that any 3-manifold for which the fundamental group has at…
A classification of spanning surfaces for alternating links is provided up to genus, orientability, and a new invariant that we call aggregate slope. That is, given an alternating link, we determine all possible combinations of genus,…
The existence of essential closed surfaces surfaces is proven for finite coverings of 3-manifolds that are triangulated by finitely many topological ideal tetrahedra and admit a regular, negatively curved, ideal structure.
We study the invariants of surfaces in 4-manifolds extracted from the Seiberg-Witten and the Ozsvath-Szabo invariants of their fiber sums with auxiliary Lefschetz fibrations. Such invariants involve relative Spin_c structures and can be…
We refine Osserman's argument on the exceptional values of the Gauss map of algebraic minimal surfaces. This gives an effective estimate for the number of exceptional values and the totally ramified value number for a wider class of…
We consider the natural problem of counting isotopy classes of essential surfaces in 3-manifolds, focusing on closed essential surfaces in a broad class of hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Our main result is that the count of (possibly disconnected)…
We introduce the notion of fundamental heap for compact orientable surfaces with boundary embedded in $3$-space, which is an isotopy invariant of the embedding. It is a group, endowed with a ternary heap operation, defined using diagrams of…
We prove that in the complement of a highly twisted link, all closed, essential, meridionally incompressible surfaces must have high genus. The genus bound is proportional to the number of crossings per twist region. A similar result holds…
Let $F$ be a proper essential immersed surface in a hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$ with boundary disjoint from a torus boundary component $T$ of $M$. Let $\alpha$ be the set of coannular slopes of $F$ on $T$. The main theorem of the paper shows…
Checkerboard surfaces in alternating link complements are used frequently to determine information about the link. However, when many crossings are added to a single twist region of a link diagram, the geometry of the link complement…
Using Real Seiberg--Witten theory, Miyazawa introduced an invariant of certain 4-manifolds with involution and used this invariant to construct infinitely many exotic involutions on $\mathbb{CP}^2$ and infinitely many exotic smooth…
We prove that the Laurent polynomial in $\mathbb{Z}[q^{\pm 1}]$ that is the top coefficient of the Links-Gould invariant of the boundary of a Seifert surface is multiplicative under plumbing of surfaces. We deduce that the Links-Gould…
We establish a general `gluing theorem', which states roughly that if two nondegenerate constant mean curvature surfaces are juxtaposed, so that their tangent planes are parallel and very close to one another, but oppositely oriented, then…
We formulate a very general conjecture relating the analytical invariants of a normal surface singularity to the Seiberg-Witten invariants of its link provided that the link is a rational homology sphere. As supporting evidence, we…
Meier and Zupan showed that every surface in the four-sphere admits a bridge trisection and can therefore be represented by three simple tangles. This raises the possibility of applying methods from link homology to knotted surfaces. We use…