Related papers: Distance and bridge position

We extend the notion of thin multiple Heegaard splittings of a link in a 3-manifold to take into consideration not only compressing disks but also cut-disks for the Heegaard surfaces. We prove that if H is a c-strongly compressible bridge…

A theorem of Jorgensen and Thurston implies that the volume of a hyperbolic 3-manifold is bounded below by a linear function of its Heegaard genus. Heegaard surfaces and bridge surfaces often exhibit similar topological behavior; thus it is…

Let $P, Q$ be Heegaard surfaces of a closed orientable 3-manifold. In this paper, we introduce a method for giving an upper bound of Hempel distance of $P$ by using the Reeb graph derived from a certain horizontal arc in the ambient space…

For a knot $K\subset S^3$, its exterior $E(K) = S^3\backslash\eta(K)$ has a singular foliation by Seifert surfaces of $K$ derived from a circle-valued Morse function $f\colon E(K)\to S^1$. When $f$ is self-indexing and has no critical…

Let M be $S^3$, $S^1\times S^2$, or a lens space L(p,q), and let k be a (1,1)-knot in M, i.e., a knot which is of 1-bridge with respect to a Heegaard torus. We show that if there is a closed meridionally incompressible surface in the…

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…

A diagonal surface in a link exterior M is a properly embedded, incompressible, boundary incompressible surface which furthermore has the same number of boundary components and same slope on each component of the boundary of M. We derive a…

J Hempel [Topology, 2001] showed that the set of distances of the Heegaard splittings (S,V, h^n(V)) is unbounded, as long as the stable and unstable laminations of h avoid the closure of V in PML(S). Here h is a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism…

This article is the author's contribution to the volume "Problems on mapping class groups and related topics" which will be published in December 2006, with Benson Farb as Editor. Various individuals were invited by Farb to submit open…

We produce embeddings of knots in thin position that admit compressible thin levels. We also find the bridge number of tangle sums where each tangle is high distance.

We construct knots in S^3 with Heegaard splittings of arbitrarily high distance, in any genus. As an application, for any positive integers t and b we find a tunnel number t knot in the three-sphere which has no (t,b)-decomposition.

In a 3-manifold M, let K be a knot and R be an annulus which meets K transversely. We define the notion of the pair (R,K) being caught by a surface Q in the exterior of the link given by K and the boundary curves of R. For a caught pair…

We show that the number of stabilizations needed to interchange the handlebodies of a Heegaard splitting of a closed 3-manifold by an isotopy is bounded below by the smaller of twice its genus or half its Hempel distance. This is a…

We give a locally minimal, but not globally minimal bridge position of a knot, that is, an unstabilized, nonminimal bridge position of a knot. It implies that a bridge position cannot always be simplified so that the bridge number…

Given any closed, connected, orientable $3$--manifold and integers $g\geq g(M), D > 0$, we show the existence of knots in $M$ whose genus $g$ bridge number is greater than $D$. These knots lie in a page of an open book decomposition of $M$,…

Given integers b, c, g, and n, we construct a manifold M containing a c-component link L so that there is a bridge surface Sigma for (M,L) of genus g that intersects L in 2b points and has distance at least n. More generally, given two…

We study distance relations in various simplicial complexes associated with low-dimensional manifolds. In particular, complexes satisfying certain topological conditions with vertices as simple multi-curves. We obtain bounds on the…

We show that every knot is one crossing change away from a knot of arbitrarily high bridge number and arbitrarily high bridge distance.

We extend techniques due to Pardon to show that there is a lower bound on the distortion of a knot in $\mathbb{R}^3$ proportional to the minimum of the bridge distance and the bridge number of the knot. We also exhibit an infinite family of…

We show that if the Hempel distance of a Heegaard splitting is larger than three then the mapping class group of the Heegaard splitting is isomorphic to a subgroup of the mapping class group of the ambient 3-manifold. This implies that…