Related papers: Link groups and the A-B slice problem
Let L \subset S^3 denote an alternating link and Sigma(L) its branched double-cover. We give a short proof of the fact that the fundamental group of Sigma(L) admits a left-ordering iff L is an unlink. This result is originally due to…
Whitehead doubles provide a plethora of examples of knots that are topologically slice but not smoothly slice. We discuss the problem of the Whitehead double of the Figure 8 knot and survey commonly used techniques to obstructing sliceness.…
We establish the slice-ribbon conjecture for a large family of Montesinos' knots by means of Donaldson's theorem on the intersection forms of definite 4-manifolds.
Two links are link-homotopic if they are transformed into each other by a sequence of self-crossing changes and ambient isotopies. The link-homotopy classes of 4-component links were classified by Levine with enormous algebraic…
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…
Cut-diagrams are diagrammatic objects, defined in dimensions 1 and 2, that generalize links in 3-space and surface-links in 4-space; in dimension 1, this coincides with the theory of welded links. Using cut-diagrams, we introduce an…
In this paper we conjecture that the Links-Gould invariant of links, that we know is a generalization of the Alexander-Conway polynomial, shares some of its classical features. In particular it seems to give a lower bound for the genus of…
We establish duality between real forms of the quantum deformation of the 4-dimensional orthogonal group studied by Fioresi et al. and the classification work made by Borowiec et al.. Classically these real forms are the isometry groups of…
The goal of this paper is to set up an obstruction theory in the context of algebras over an operad and in the framework of differential graded modules over a field. Precisely, the problem we consider is the following: Suppose given two…
We are interested in contractible n-manifolds M which "split" as M = A union B where A,B, and A intersect B are all homeomorphic to Euclidean n-space (such M are called open n-splitters) or A,B, and A intersect B are all homeomorphic to the…
We show that the topological complexity of an aspherical space $X$ is bounded below by the cohomological dimension of the direct product $A\times B$, whenever $A$ and $B$ are subgroups of $\pi_1(X)$ whose conjugates intersect trivially. For…
We prove that deciding if a diagram of the unknot can be untangled using at most $k$ Riedemeister moves (where $k$ is part of the input) is NP-hard. We also prove that several natural questions regarding links in the $3$-sphere are NP-hard,…
We develop an obstruction theory for the extension of truncated minimal $A$-infinity bimodule structures over truncated minimal $A$-infinity algebras. Obstructions live in far-away pages of a (truncated) fringed spectral sequence of…
Classically, an abelian group $G$ is said to be slender if every homomorphism from the countable product $\mathbb Z^{\mathbb N}$ to $G$ factors through the projection to some finite product $\mathbb Z^n$. Various authors have proposed…
A multisection of a 4-manifold is a decomposition into 1-handlebodies intersecting pairwise along 3-dimensional handlebodies or along a central closed surface; this generalizes the Gay-Kirby trisections. We show how to compute the twisted…
We construct a weak 2-functor from the bicategory of oriented tangles to a bicategory of Lagrangian cospans. This functor simultaneously extends the Burau representation of the braid groups, its generalization to tangles due to Turaev and…
We give an elementary construction of the tangent-obstruction theory of the deformations of the pair $(X,L)$ with $X$ a reduced local complete intersection scheme and $L$ a line bundle on $X$. This generalizes the classical deformation…
Given a biquandle $(X, S)$, a function $\tau$ with certain compatibility and a pair of {\em non commutative cocyles} $f,h:X \times X\to G$ with values in a non necessarily commutative group $G$, we give an invariant for singular knots /…
For links with vanishing pairwise linking numbers, the link components bound pairwise disjoint surfaces in $B^{4}$. In this paper, we describe the set of genera of such surfaces in terms of the $h$-function, which is a link invariant from…
A celebrated theorem of Kirby identifies the set of closed oriented connected 3-manifolds with the set of framed links in $S^3$ modulo two moves. We give a similar description for the set of knots (and more generally, boundary links) in…