Related papers: The size of triangulations supporting a given link
We introduce a numerical isomorphism invariant p(T) for any triangulation T of S^3. Although its definition is purely topological (inspired by the bridge number of knots), p(T) reflects the geometric properties of T. Specifically, if T is…
We study the crossing number of links that are formed by edges of a triangulation T of the 3-sphere with n tetrahedra. We show that the crossing number is bounded from above by an exponential function of n^2. In general, this bound can not…
We show that there are a finite number of possible pictures for a surface in a tetrahedron with local index $n$. Combined with previous results, this establishes that any topologically minimal surface can be transformed into one with a…
We consider closed acylindrical surfaces in 3-manifolds and in knot and link complements, and show that the genus of these surfaces is bounded linearly by the number of tetrahedra in the triangulation of the manifold and by the number of…
Two Seifert surfaces of links in $S^3$ are said to be twist equivalent if one can be obtained from the other, up to isotopy, by repeatedly performing operations consisting of cutting along an embedded arc, applying a full twist near one…
It is known that we can always 3-triangulate (i.e. divide into tetrahedra) convex polyhedra but not always non-convex ones. Polyhedra topologically equivalent to sphere with $p$ handles, shortly $p$-toroids, could not be convex. So, it is…
The triple linking number of an oriented surface link was defined as an analogical notion of the linking number of a classical link. We consider a certain $m$-component $T^2$-link ($m \geq 3$) determined from two commutative pure $m$-braids…
The Thurston norm is a seminorm on the second real homology group of a compact orientable 3-manifold. The unit ball of this norm is a convex polyhedron, whose shape's data (e.g. number of vertices, regularity) measures the complexity of the…
The triangulation complexity of a closed orientable 3-manifold is the minimal number of tetrahedra in any triangulation of the manifold. The main theorem of the paper gives upper and lower bounds on the triangulation complexity of any…
It is known that any two triangulations of a compact 3-manifold are related by finite sequences of certain local transformations. We prove here an upper bound for the length of a shortest transformation sequence relating any two…
One measure of the complexity of a 3-manifold is its triangulation complexity: the minimal number of tetrahedra in a triangulation of it. A natural question is whether we can relate this quantity to its topology. We determine the…
We adapt work of Kirby-Thompson and Zupan to define an integer invariant $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{T})$ of a bridge trisection $\mathcal{T}$ of a smooth surface $\mathcal{K}$ in $S^4$ or $B^4$. We show that when $\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{T})=0$,…
We present small triangulations of all connected sums of $\mathbb{CP}^2$ and $S^2 \times S^2$ with the standard piecewise linear structure. Our triangulations have $2\beta_2+2$ pentachora, where $\beta_2$ is the second Betti number of the…
We show that the bridge number of a $t$ bridge knot in $S^3$ with respect to an unknotted genus $t$ surface is bounded below by a function of the distance of the Heegaard splitting induced by the $t$ bridges. It follows that for any natural…
Suppose $K$ is an unknot lying in the 1-skeleton of a triangulated 3-manifold with $t$ tetrahedra. Hass and Lagarias showed there is an upper bound, depending only on $t$, for the minimal number of elementary moves to untangle $K$. We give…
The famous Tetrahedron Conjecture of Tur\'an from the 1940s asserts that the number of edges in an $n$-vertex $3$-graph without the tetrahedron, the complete $3$-graph on four vertices, cannot exceed that of the balanced complete cyclic…
It is a widely observed phenomenon in computer graphics that the size of the silhouette of a polyhedron is much smaller than the size of the whole polyhedron. This paper provides, for the first time, theoretical evidence supporting this for…
We provide a detailed proof of the following folklore theorem: Let mu > 0 be a Margulis constant for 3-dimensional hyperbolic space. Then for any d>0 there exists a constant K>0, depending on mu and d, so that for any complete finite volume…
We study compact three-manifolds with boundary obtained by randomly gluing together truncated tetrahedra along their faces. We prove that, asymptotically almost surely as the number of tetrahedra tends to infinity, these manifolds are…
Ropelength, L, is a parameter characterizing the minimum contour length of a knot or link. There exist upper and lower bounds on ropelength with respect to crossing number, C, including a universal lower bound constraining $L\geq\alpha_0…