Related papers: Four-manifolds, geometries and knots

From a handlebody-theoretic perspective, the simplest compact, contractible 4-manifolds, other than the 4-ball, are Mazur manifolds. We produce the first pairs of Mazur manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic. Our…

We obtain new invariants of topological link concordance and homology cobordism of 3-manifolds from Hirzebruch-type intersection form defects of towers of iterated p-covers. Our invariants can extract geometric information from an arbitrary…

We establish a braid of interlocking exact sequences containing the group of homotopy self-equivalences of a smooth or topological 4-manifold. The braid is computed for manifolds whose fundamental group is finite of odd order.

Using spinning we analyze in a geometric way Haefliger's smoothly knotted (4k-1)-spheres in the 6k-sphere. Consider the 2-torus standardly embedded in the 3-sphere, which is further standardly embedded in the 6-sphere. At each point of the…

In [HT], two of us constructed a closed oriented 4-dimensional manifold with fundamental group $\Z$ that does not split off $S^1\times S^3$. In this note we show that this 4-manifold, and various others derived from it, do not admit smooth…

Let $R$ be a closed, oriented topological 4-manifold whose Euler characteristic and signature are denoted by $e$ and $\sigma$. We show that if $R$ has order two $\pi_1$, odd intersection form, and $2e + 3\sigma \geq 0$, then for all but…

In loop quantum gravity, states of quantum geometry are represented by classes of knotted graphs, equivalent under diffeomorphisms. Thus, it is worthwhile to enumerate and distinguish these classes. This paper looks at the case of 4-regular…

We compute the oriented cobordism group of fold maps of 4-manifolds into the space with all the possible restrictions (and also with no restriction) to the singular fibers. We also give geometric invariants which describe completely the…

The main result of this paper asserts that if a Seifert fibered 4-manifold has nonzero Seiberg-Witten invariant, the homotopy class of regular fibers has infinite order. This is a nontrivial obstruction to smooth circle actions; as…

We present explicit algorithms for simplifying the topology of indefinite fibrations on 4-manifolds, which include broken Lefschetz fibrations and indefinite Morse 2-functions. The algorithms consist of sequences of moves, which modify…

Using the conjugation symmetry on Heegaard Floer complexes, we define a three-manifold invariant called involutive Heegaard Floer homology, which is meant to correspond to $\mathbb{Z}_4$-equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer homology. Further,…

We investigate several conjectures in geometric topology by assembling computer data obtained by studying weaving knots, a doubly infinite family $W(p,n)$ of examples of hyperbolic knots. In particular, we compute some important polynomial…

We present a new, more elementary proof of the Freedman-Teichner result that the geometric classification techniques (surgery, s-cobordism, and pseudoisotopy) hold for topological 4-manifolds with groups of subexponential growth. In an…

We relate degree one grasper families of embedded circles to various constructions of diffeomorphisms found in the literature -- theta clasper classes of Watanabe, barbell diffeomorphisms of Budney and Gabai, and twin twists of Gay and…

This is a long summary of the author's book "D-manifolds and d-orbifolds: a theory of derived differential geometry", available at http://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/~joyce/dmanifolds.html . A shorter survey paper on the book, focussing on…

We show how to construct, starting from a quasi-Hopf algebra, or quasi-quantum group, invariants of knots and links. In some cases, these invariants give rise to invariants of the three-manifolds obtained by surgery along these links. This…

Let $\pi$ be a group satisfying the Farrell-Jones conjecture and assume that $B\pi$ is a 4-dimensional Poincar\'e duality space. We consider topological, closed, connected manifolds with fundamental group $\pi$ whose canonical map to $B\pi$…

Sutured manifolds defined by Gabai are useful in the geometrical study of knots and 3-dimensional manifolds. On the other hand, homology cylinders are in an important position in the recent theory of homology cobordisms of surfaces and…

This paper studies properly embedded surfaces in the 4-ball that are exotically knotted (i.e., topologically but not smoothly isotopic), and leverages this local phenomenon to study surfaces in larger 4-manifolds. The main results provide a…

We conjecture the existence of four independent gradings in the colored HOMFLY homology. We describe these gradings explicitly for the rectangular colored homology of torus knots and make qualitative predictions of various interesting…