Related papers: Weights of essential surfaces in 2-bridge knot com…

In this paper, we characterize closed incompressible surfaces of genus two in the complements of 3-bridge knots and links. This characterization includes that of essential 2-string tangle decompositions for 3-bridge knots and links.

We consider irreducible 3-manifolds M that arise as knot complements in closed 3-manifolds and that contain at most two connected strict essential surfaces. The results in the paper relate the boundary slopes of the two surfaces to their…

We investigate the question of when distinct branched surfaces in the complement of a 2-bridge knot support essential surfaces with identical boundary slopes. We determine all instances in which this occurs and identify an infinite family…

In this paper, we consider generalizations of the Alexander polynomial and signature of 2-bridge knots by considering the Gordon-Litherland bilinear forms associated to essential state surfaces of the 2-bridge knots. We show that the…

We give a visual construction of stable maps from the $3$-sphere into the real plane enjoying the following properties; the set of definite fold points coincides with a given two-bridge link and the map only admits certain types of fibers…

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 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…

We present a new, practical algorithm to test whether a knot complement contains a closed essential surface. This property has important theoretical and algorithmic consequences; however, systematically testing it has until now been…

The bridge index and superbridge index of a knot are important invariants in knot theory. We define the bridge map of a knot conformation, which is closely related to these two invariants, and interpret it in terms of the tangent indicatrix…

In this article we study a partial ordering on knots in the 3-sphere where K_1 is greater than or equal to K_2 if there is an epimorphism from the knot group of K_1 onto the knot group of K_2 which preserves peripheral structure. If K_1 is…

Closed essential surfaces in a three-manifold can be detected by ideal points of the character variety or by algebraic non-integral representations. We give examples of closed essential surfaces not detected in either of these ways. For…

We show that if $K$ is a knot in $S^3$ and $\Sigma$ is a bridge sphere for $K$ with high distance and $2n$ punctures, the number of perturbations of $K$ required to interchange the two balls bounded by $\Sigma$ via an isotopy is $n$. We…

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…

Any 2-bridge knot in the 3-sphere has a bridge sphere from which any other bridge surface can be obtained by stabilization, meridional stabilization, perturbation and proper isotopy.

The fundamental quandle is an invariant for distinguishing surface knots, yet computable presentations have traditionally been limited to surfaces embedded in the $4$-sphere. Building on the framework of banded unlink diagrams introduced by…

Suppose $K$ is a knot in a closed 3-manifold $M$ such that $\bar{M-N(K)}$ is irreducible. We show that for any positive integer $b$ there exists a triangulation of $\bar{M-N(K)}$ such that any weakly incompressible bridge surface for $K$ of…

We determine the set of all genus g bridge numbers of many iterated torus knots, listing these numbers in a sequence called the bridge spectrum. In addition, we prove a structural lemma about the decomposition of a strongly irreducible…

Neuwirth asked if any non-trivial knot in the 3-sphere can be embedded in a closed surface so that the complement of the surface is a connected essential surface for the knot complement. In this paper, we examine some variations on this…

This monograph derives direct and concrete relations between colored Jones polynomials and the topology of incompressible spanning surfaces in knot and link complements. Under mild diagrammatic hypotheses that arise naturally in the study…

We give a simple sufficient condition for a spun-normal surface in an ideal triangulation to be incompressible, namely that it is a vertex surface with non-empty boundary which has a quadrilateral in each tetrahedron. While this condition…