Related papers: Thin position for knots in a 3-manifold

We show that if $K$ is a knot in $S^3$ and $\Sigma$ is a bridge sphere for $K$ with high distance and $2n$ punctures, the number of perturbations of $K$ required to interchange the two balls bounded by $\Sigma$ via an isotopy is $n$. We…

Let L be a link in the 3-sphere that is in thin position but not in bridge position and let P be a thin level sphere. We generalize a result of Wu by giving a bound on the number of disjoint irreducible compressing disks that P can have,…

We give a combinatorial proof of a theorem first proved by Souto which says the following. Let M_1 and M_2 be simple 3-manifolds with connected boundary of genus g>0. If M_1 and M_2 are glued via a complicated map, then every minimal…

We introduce a new technique for finding lower bounds on the Heegaard genus of a 3-manifold obtained by gluing a pair of 3-manifolds together along an incompressible torus or annulus. We deduce a number of inequalities, including one which…

Internal stabilization adds a trivial handle to an embedded surface in a coordinate chart. It is known that any pair of smoothly knotted surfaces in a simply-connected $4$-manifold become smoothly isotopic after sufficiently many internal…

Suppose $V\cup_S W$ is a weakly reducible Heegaard splitting of a closed 3-manifold which admits only $n$ pairs of disjoint compression disks on distinct sides and $g>2$. We show $V\cup_S W$ admits an untelescoping:…

We address a special case of the Stabilization Problem for Heegaard splittings, establishing an upper bound on the number of stabilizations required to make a Heegaard splitting of a Haken 3-manifold isotopic to an amalgamation along an…

We show that Haefliger's differentiable (6,3)-knot bounds, in 6-space, a 4-manifold (a Seifert surface) of arbitrarily prescribed signature. This implies, according to our previous paper, that the Seifert surface has been prolonged in a…

The rectangle condition for a genus $g$ Heegaard splitting of a 3-manifold, defined by Casson and Gordon, provides a sufficient criterion for the Heegaard splitting to be strongly irreducible. However it is unknown whether there exists a…

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…

Let M be a totally orientable graph manifold with characteristic submanifold T and let M = V cup_S W be a Heegaard splitting. We prove that S is standard. In particular, S is the amalgamation of strongly irreducible Heegaard splittings. The…

We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a simple closed curve on the boundary of a genus two handlebody to decompose the handlebody into (torus with one boundary component times [0,1]. We use this condition to decide whether a…

In this paper, we define the rectangle condition on the bridge sphere for a $n$-bridge decomposition of a knot whose definition is analogous to the definition of the rectangle condition for Heegaard splittings of $3$-manifolds. We show that…

We give a new elementary proof of the parallelizability of closed orientable 3-manifolds. We use as the main tool the fact that any such manifold admits a Heegaard splitting.

If a 3--manifold $Y$ contains a non-separating sphere, then some twisted Heegaard Floer homology of $Y$ is zero. This simple fact allows us to prove several results about Dehn surgery on knots in such manifolds. Similar results have been…

A marked strongly invertible knot is a triple $(K,h,\delta)$ of a knot $K$ in $S^3$, a strong inversion $h$ of $K$, and a subarc $\delta \subset \operatorname{Fix}(h)\cong S^1$ bounded by $\operatorname{Fix}(h)\cap K\cong S^0$. An invariant…

A knot K in 1-bridge position with respect to a genus-g Heegaard surface in a 3-manifold can be moved by isotopy through knots in 1-bridge position until it lies in a union of n parallel genus-g surfaces tubed together by n-1 straight…

We show that the complex of weak reducing disks for the unknot in $3$-bridge position is contractible.

This paper has been withdrawn by the author, as the proof of Theorem 3.2 contains a flaw; subsequently, both it and Theorem 3.3 are not known to hold. The content of Section 5 has been improved and expanded upon in two separate papers. The…

Motivated by M. Scharlemann and A. Thompson's definition of thin position of 3-manifolds, we define the width of a handle decomposition a 4-manifold and introduce the notion of thin position of a compact smooth 4-manifold. We determine all…