Related papers: Impossibility of obtaining split links from split …

Satellite constructions on a knot can be thought of as taking some strands of a knot and then tying in another knot. Using satellite constructions one can construct many distinct isotopy classes of knots. Pushing this further one can…

We use the knot homology of Khovanov and Lee to construct link concordance invariants generalizing the Rasmussen $s$-invariant of knots. The relevant invariant for a link is a filtration on a vector space of dimension $2^{|L|}$. The basic…

A link in the 3-sphere is homotopically trivial, according to Milnor, if its components bound disjoint maps of disks in the 4-ball. This paper concerns the question of what spaces give rise to the same class of homotopically trivial links…

Physical knots and links are one-dimensional submanifolds of R^3 with fixed length and thickness. We show that isotopy classes in this category can differ from those of classical knot and link theory. In particular we exhibit a Gordian…

We reprove and extend a result of David Krebes (J. Knot Theory Ramif. 8 (1999), 321-352) giving an obstruction to embedding a tangle T into a link L. Closing the tangle up in the two obvious ways gives rise to two links, the numerator and…

Given a link projection $P$ and a link $L$, it is natural to ask whether it is possible that $P$ is a projection of $L$. Taniyama answered this question for the cases in which $L$ is a prime knot or link with crossing number at most five.…

In this paper, we use skein-theoretic techniques to classify all virtual knot polynomials and trivalent graph invariants with certain smallness conditions. The first half of the paper classifies all virtual knot polynomials giving…

Quasi-alternating links are homologically thin for both Khovanov homology and knot Floer homology. We show that every quasi-alternating link gives rise to an infinite family of quasi-alternating links obtained by replacing a crossing with…

We resolve parts (A) and (B) of Problem 1.100 from Kirby's list by showing that many nontrivial links arise as cross-sections of unknotted holomorphic disks in the four-ball. The techniques can be used to produce unknotted ribbon surfaces…

We construct a new spectral sequence beginning at the Khovanov homology of a link and converging to the Khovanov homology of the disjoint union of its components. The page at which the sequence collapses gives a lower bound on the splitting…

Bing doubling is an operation which produces a 2-component boundary link B(K) from a knot K. If K is slice, then B(K) is easily seen to be boundary slice. In this paper, we investigate whether the converse holds. Our main result is that if…

(1) We show that if a presentation of the trivial group is "hard to trivialize", in the sense that lots of Tietze moves are necessary to transform it into the trivial presentation, then the associated presentation complex (which is a…

Ballinger et al. have determined the list of all prism manifolds that are possibly realizable by Dehn surgeries on knots in $S^3$. In this paper, we explicitly find braid words of primitive/Seifert-fibered knots on which surface slope…

A Dehn surgery on a knot $K$ in $S^3$ is exceptional if it produces a reducible, toroidal or Seifert fibred manifold. It is known that a large arborescent knot admits no such surgery unless it is a type II arborescent knot. The main theorem…

Deciding whether a family of disjoint axis-parallel line segments in the plane can be linked into a simple polygon (or a simple polygonal chain) by adding segments between their endpoints is NP-hard.

We show that any closed incompressible surface in the complement of a positive knot is algebraically non-split from the knot, positive knots cannot bound non-free incompressible Seifert surfaces and that the splitability and the primeness…

We extend Lee's result on sl(2) Khovanov cohomology of a link L to the general sl(n) case: a filtered chain complex C(L) whose spectral sequence E_2 term equals Khovanov cohomology is exhibited. We also compute C(L)'s cohomology: it depends…

The determination of the braid index of an oriented link is generally a hard problem. In the case of alternating links, some significant progresses have been made in recent years which made explicit and precise braid index computations…

A virtual link is a generalization of a classical link that is defined as an equivalence class of certain diagrams, called virtual link diagrams. It is further generalized to a twisted link. Twisted links are in one-to-one correspondence…

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