Related papers: Torus knots that cannot be untied by twisting

We construct infinitely many smoothly slice knots having topological slice discs that are non-approximable by smooth slice discs.

It is a well-known procedure for constructing a torus knot or link that first we prepare an unknotted torus and meridian disks in the complementary solid tori of it, and second smooth the intersections of the boundary of meridian disks…

We obtain the full list of Goeritz invariants of all torus knots and links.

We give a simple obstruction for a knot to be amphichiral, in terms of the homology of the 2-fold branched cover. We work with unoriented knots, and so obstruct both positive and negative amphichirality.

We prove that an iterated torus knot type fails the uniform thickness property (UTP) if and only if all of its iterations are positive cablings, which is precisely when an iterated torus knot type supports the standard contact structure. We…

We use Heegaard Floer homology to give obstructions to unknotting a knot with a single crossing change. These restrictions are particularly useful in the case where the knot in question is alternating. As an example, we use them to classify…

We introduce an unknotting-type number of knot projections that gives an upper bound of the crosscap number of knots. We determine the set of knot projections with the unknotting-type number at most two, and this result implies classical…

Take a thin, rectangular strip of paper, add in an odd number of half-twists, then join the ends together. This gives a multi-twist paper M\"obius band. We prove that any multi-twist paper M\"obius band can be constructed so the aspect…

In 2000, Thomas Fink and Young Mao studied neck ties and, with certain assumptions, found 85 different ways to tie a neck tie. They gave a formal language which describes how a tie is made, giving a sequence of moves for each neck tie. The…

In the search for transverse-universal knots in the standard contact structure on $\mathbb{S}^3$, we present a classification of the transverse twist knots with maximal self-linking number, that admit only overtwisted contact branched…

We give a complete coarse classification of Legendrian and transverse torus knots in any contact structure on $S^3$.

We consider knots whose diagrams have a high amount of twisting of multiple strands. By encircling twists on multiple strands with unknotted curves, we obtain a link called a generalized augmented link. Dehn filling this link gives the…

We classify knot traces with trisection genus at most 2. We give infinitely many knots whose traces have trisection genus 3, and infinitely many knots whose traces have trisection genus 4. We also show that there exist infinite families of…

We introduce a version of the Alexander polynomial for singular knots and tangles and show how it can be strengthened considerably by introducing a perturbation. For singular long knots, we also prove that our Alexander polynomial agrees…

We determine the locally flat cobordism distance between torus knots with small and large braid index, up to high precision. Here small means 2, 3, 4, or 6. As an application, we derive a surprising fact about torus knots that appear as…

We explore under what conditions one can obtain a nontrivial knot, given a collection of $n$ vectors. First, we show how to get a crossing from any 3 vectors equal in magnitude, by arbitrarily picking 2 vectors and identifying the…

We give an obstruction to unknotting a knot by adding a twisted band, derived from Heegaard Floer homology.

The transient number of a knot K, denoted tr(K), is the minimal number of simple arcs that have to be attached to K, in order that K can be homotoped to a trivial knot in a regular neighborhood of the union of K and the arcs. We give a…

For a knot K in S^3, let T(K) be the characteristic toric sub-orbifold of the orbifold (S^3,K) as defined by Bonahon and Siebenmann. If K has unknotting number one, we show that an unknotting arc for K can always be found which is disjoint…

We study the formation of knots on a macroscopic ball-chain, which is shaken on a horizontal plate at 12 times the acceleration of gravity. We find that above a certain critical length, the knotting probability is independent of chain…