Related papers: Embedding infinite cyclic covers of knot spaces in…
Given a knot in $S^3$, one can associate to it a surface diffeomorphism in two different ways. First, an arbitrary knot in $S^{3}$ can be represented by braids, which can be thought of as diffeomorphisms of punctured disks. Second, if the…
We use the 2-loop term of the Kontsevich integral to show that there are (many) knots with trivial Alexander polynomial which don't have a Seifert surface whose genus equals the rank of the Seifert form. This is one of the first…
Conjecturally, a knot in the 3-sphere has only finitely many non-integer non-characterizing slopes. We verify this conjecture for all knots with knot Floer homology satisfying certain simplicity conditions. The class of knots satisfying our…
In this paper we show that all 3-manifolds of a family introduced by M. J. Dunwoody are cyclic coverings of lens spaces (eventually $\bf S^3$), branched over genus one 1-bridge knots. As a consequence, we give a positive answer to the…
Ozsv\'ath and Szab\'o conjectured that knot Floer homology detects fibred knots in $S^3$. We will prove this conjecture for null-homologous knots in arbitrary closed 3--manifolds. Namely, if $K$ is a knot in a closed 3--manifold $Y$, $Y-K$…
A knot k in a closed orientable 3-manifold is called nonsimple if the exterior of k possesses a properly embedded essential surface of nonnegative Euler characteristic. We show that if k is a nonsimple prime tunnel number one knot in a lens…
Neuwirth asked if any non-trivial knot in the 3-sphere can be embedded in a closed surface so that the complement of the surface is a connected essential surface for the knot complement. In this paper, we examine some variations on this…
We show that the infinite cyclic cover of the exterior of the untwisted Whitehead double of a non-trivial knot does not embed in any compact 3-manifold, answering a question of Jiang, Ni, Wang and Zhou.
We classify nonnegatively curved simply connected 4-manifolds with circle symmetry up to equivariant diffeomorphisms. The main problem is rule out knotted curves in the singular set of the orbit space. As an extension of this work we…
Kirby and Lickorish showed that every knot in the 3-sphere is concordant to a prime knot, equivalently, every concordance class contains a prime knot. We prove here that their result can be strengthened: Every knot in the 3-sphere is…
The classical abelian invariants of a knot are the Alexander module, which is the first homology group of the the unique infinite cyclic covering space of S^3-K, considered as a module over the (commutative) Laurent polynomial ring, and the…
We construct ribbon surfaces of Euler characteristic one for several infinite families of alternating 3-braid closures. We also use a twisted Alexander polynomial obstruction to conclude the classification of smoothly slice knots which are…
Each $r$-Dehn filling of the exterior $E(K)$ of a knot $K$ in $S^3$ produces a $3$-manifold $K(r)$, and induces an epimorphism from the knot group $G(K) = \pi_1(E(K))$ to $\pi_1(K(r))$, which trivializes elements in its kernel. To each…
It is shown, using sutured manifold theory, that if there are any 2-component counterexamples to the Generalized Property R Conjecture, then any knot of least genus among components of such counterexamples is not a fibered knot. The general…
By the Fox's re-embedding theorem, any compact submanifold of the 3-sphere can be re-embedded in the 3-sphere so that it is unknotted. It is unknown whether the Fox's re-embedding can be replaced with twistings. In this paper, we will show…
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…
We show that there exist hyperbolic knots in the 3-sphere such that the set of points of large injectivity radius in the complement take up the bulk of the volume. More precisely, given a finite volume hyperbolic manifold, for any bound R>0…
We construct a hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$ (with $\partial M$ totally geodesic) which contains no essential closed surfaces, but for any even integer $g> 0$ there are infinitely many separating slopes $r$ on $\partial M$ so that $M[r]$, the…
In this paper, we describe the relation between the study of closed connected surfaces embedded in $S^3$ and the theory of handlebody-knots. By Fox's theorem, a pair of handlebody-knots is associated to a closed connected surface embedded…
Prime power fold cyclic branched covers along smoothly slice knots all bound rational homology balls. This phenomenon, however, does not characterize slice knots. In this paper, we give a new construction of non-slice knots that have the…