Related papers: 3-manifolds as viewed from the curve complex

The classical Seifert algorithm provides an explicit construction of a Seifert surface for any link in $S^3$. Alegria and Menasco extended this construction to integral homology $3$-spheres using Heegaard splittings. In this paper, we…

In combinatorial topology we aim to triangulate manifolds such that their topological properties are reflected in the combinatorial structure of their description. Here, we give a combinatorial criterion on when exactly triangulations of…

We apply Heegaard Floer homology to study deformations of singularities of plane algebraic curves. Our main result provides an obstruction to the existence of a deformation between two singularities. Generalizations include the case of…

We survey some recent geometric methods for studying Heegaard splittings of 3-manifolds

Our earlier twisted-face-pairing construction showed how to modify an arbitrary orientation-reversing face-pairing on a faceted 3-ball in a mechanical way so that the quotient is automatically a closed, orientable 3-manifold. The…

We analyze four-dimensional symplectic manifolds of type $X=S^1 \times M^3$ where $M^3$ is an open $3$-manifold admitting inequivalent fibrations leading to inequivalent symplectic structures on $X$. For the case where $M^3 \subset S^3$ is…

The works of Donaldson and Mark make the structure of the Seiberg-Witten invariant of 3-manifolds clear. It corresponds to certain torsion type invariants counting flow lines and closed orbits of a gradient flow of a circle-valued Morse map…

A real 3-manifold is a smooth 3-manifold together with an orientation preserving smooth involution, which is called a real structure. A real contact 3-manifold is a real 3-manifold with a contact distribution that is antisymmetric with…

Let M be a closed, connected and oriented 3-manifold. This article is the first of a five part series that constructs an isomorphism between the Heegaard Floer homology groups of M and the corresponding Seiberg-Witten Floer homology groups…

We consider a Heegaard splitting M=H_1 \cup_S H_2 of a 3-manifold M having an essential disk D in H_1 and an essential surface F in H_2 with |D \cap F|=1. (We require that boundary of F is in S when H_2 is a compressionbody with non-empty…

Let $M=W\cup_T V$ be an amalgamation of two compact 3-manifolds along a torus, where $W$ is the exterior of a knot in a homology sphere. Let $N$ be the manifold obtained by replacing $W$ with a solid torus such that the boundary of a…

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…

We produce a rational homology 3-sphere that does not smoothly bound either a positive or negative definite 4-manifold. Such a 3-manifold necessarily cannot be rational homology cobordant to a Seifert fibered space or any 3-manifold…

An irreducible 3--manifold with torus boundary either is a Seifert fibered space or admits at most three lens space fillings according to the Cyclic Surgery Theorem. We examine the sharpness of this theorem by classifying the non-hyperbolic…

F-manifolds are complex manifolds with a multiplication with unit on the holomorphic tangent bundle with a certain integrability condition. Here the local classification of 3-dimensional F-manifolds with or without Euler fields is pursued.

We calculate the intersection ring of three-dimensional graph manifolds with rational coefficients and give an algebraic characterization of these rings when the manifold's underlying graph is a tree. We are able to use this…

There is one generalization of fibered links in 3-manifolds, called homologically fibered links. It is known that the existence of homologically fibered links whose fiber surface has a given homeomorphic type is determined by the first…

We give an algorithmic proof of the theorem that a closed orientable irreducible and atoroidal 3-manifold has only finitely many Heegaard splittings in each genus, up to isotopy. The proof gives an algorithm to determine the Heegaard genus…

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…

Seiberg-Witten (Floer) theory, Ozsvath-Szabo's Heegaard Floer theory, Hutchings's embedded contact homology, in different stages of development, define (or are expected to define) packages of invariants for 3- and 4-manifolds (including…