Related papers: Bridge Positions of Links That Cannot Be Monotonic…

It is a consequence of theorems of Gordon-Reid [Tangle decompositions of tunnel number one knots and links, J. Knot Theory and its Ramifications, 4 (1995) 389-409] and Thompson [Thin position and bridge number for knots in the 3-sphere,…

Suppose M is a closed irreducible orientable 3-manifold, K is a knot in M, P and Q are bridge surfaces for K and K is not removable with respect to Q. We show that either Q is equivalent to P or $d(K,P) \leq 2-\chi(Q-K)$. If K is not a two…

A graph is \emph{hamiltonian-connected} if every pair of vertices can be connected by a hamiltonian path, and it is \emph{hamiltonian} if it contains a hamiltonian cycle. We construct families of non-hamiltonian graphs for which the ratio…

A class of graphs is bridge-addable if given a graph $G$ in the class, any graph obtained by adding an edge between two connected components of $G$ is also in the class. We prove a conjecture of McDiarmid, Steger, and Welsh, that says that…

We show that except for $n = 2$ if a bridge surface for a knot is an index $n$ topologically minimal surface, then after a perturbation it is still topologically minimal with index at most $n+1$.

For each integer $n\ge 1$, after fixing a proper complexity function on the braid group $\B_{2n}$, we use the Dehornoy order to define a strict total order on the set \[ \mathcal P_{2n}=H_{2n}\backslash \B_{2n}/H_{2n} \] of $2n$--plat…

We introduce bridge trisections of knotted surfaces in the four-sphere. This description is inspired by the work of Gay and Kirby on trisections of four-manifolds and extends the classical concept of bridge splittings of links in the…

Given integers b, c, g, and n, we construct a manifold M containing a c-component link L so that there is a bridge surface Sigma for (M,L) of genus g that intersects L in 2b points and has distance at least n. More generally, given two…

Let L be a link in the 3-sphere that is in thin position but not in bridge position and let P be a thin level sphere. We generalize a result of Wu by giving a bound on the number of disjoint irreducible compressing disks that P can have,…

A class of graphs is bridge-addable if given a graph $G$ in the class, any graph obtained by adding an edge between two connected components of $G$ is also in the class. The authors recently proved a conjecture of McDiarmid, Steger, and…

We define the {\it Wirtinger number} of a link, an invariant closely related to the meridional rank. The Wirtinger number is the minimum number of generators of the fundamental group of the link complement over all meridional presentations…

Let k_r(n,m) denote the minimum number of r-cliques in graphs with n vertices and m edges. For r=3,4 we give a lower bound on k_r(n,m) that approximates k_r(n,m) with an error smaller than n^r/(n^2-2m). The solution is based on a constraint…

We give upper bounds of the Matveev complexities of two-bridge link complements by constructing their spines explicitly. In particular, we determine the complexities for an infinite sequence of two-bridge links corresponding to the…

We extend the Wirtinger number of links, an invariant originally defined by Blair, Kjuchukova, Velazquez, and Villanueva in terms of extending initial colorings of some strands of a diagram to the entire diagram, to spatial graphs. We prove…

We extend techniques due to Pardon to show that there is a lower bound on the distortion of a knot in $\mathbb{R}^3$ proportional to the minimum of the bridge distance and the bridge number of the knot. We also exhibit an infinite family of…

We consider a thin and narrow rectangular plate where the two short edges are hinged whereas the two long edges are free. This plate aims to represent the deck of a bridge, either a footbridge or a suspension bridge. We study a nonlocal…

Any knot $K$ in genus-$1$ $1$-bridge position can be moved by isotopy to lie in a union of $n$ parallel tori tubed by $n-1$ tubes so that $K$ intersects each tube in two spanning arcs, which we call a leveling of the position. The minimal…

Meier and Zupan introduced bridge trisections of surface links in $S^4$ as a 4-dimensional analogue to bridge decompositions of classical links, which gives a numerical invariant of surface links called the bridge number. We prove that…

Given any closed, connected, orientable $3$--manifold and integers $g\geq g(M), D > 0$, we show the existence of knots in $M$ whose genus $g$ bridge number is greater than $D$. These knots lie in a page of an open book decomposition of $M$,…

Frequently, knots are enumerated by their crossing number. However, the number of knots with crossing number $c$ grows exponentially with $c$, and to date computer-assisted proofs can only classify diagrams up to around twenty crossings.…