几何拓扑
Freedman and Krushkal showed that if the surgery conjecture and the $s$-cobordism conjecture hold for all topological 4-manifolds, then every link with pairwise zero linking numbers is topologically round handle slice. Kim, Powell, and…
The multiplicative Horn problem is the following question: given three conjugacy classes $\mathcal{C}_1, \mathcal{C}_2, \mathcal{C}_3$ in a Lie group $G$, do there exist elements…
We show that the maximal $1$-system of loops in a punctured projective plane is unique up to the mapping class group action if and only if the number of punctures is at most five.
Given a closed, smooth 4-manifold $X$ and self-diffeomorphism $f$ that is topologically pseudo-isotopic to the identity, we study the question of whether $f$ is moreover smoothly pseudo-isotopic to the identity. If the fundamental group of…
This paper gives an example of a non-arithmetic surface with marked length variety rigidity.
We study 1-parameter families of Morse functions for manifolds with boundary. We list all degeneracies that may occur in generic 1-parameter families.
We prove the existence of a smoothly doubly slice, amphicheiral knot with Alexander polynomial 1 and unknotting number 5.
Link homology theories (such as knot Floer homology and Khovanov homology) have become indispensable tools for studying knots and links, including powerful 4-dimensional obstructions. These notes, based on lectures given at the 2024 Georgia…
Consider an unknot $c$ in $S^3$ and a knot $K$ in ${S^3-N(c)}$. Twisting the knot $K$ along $c$, or equivalently applying $\frac{1}{m}$-surgery on $c$, produces a family of knots $\{K_m\}_{m \in \mathbb{Z}}$. We use bordered Floer homology…
Given a link or a tangle diagram, we define algorithmic Morse theoretic simplifications on their Khovanov homology. In contrast to Bar-Natan's scanning algorithm, the cancellations are postponed until the end and performed in one go.…
We study Dehn--Seidel twists on configurations of Lagrangian spheres in symplectic $K3$ surfaces, using tools from Seiberg--Witten theory. In the case of $ADE$ configurations of Lagrangian spheres, we prove that a naturally associated…
An action of a torus T on a manifold M is locally standard if, at each point, the stabilizer is a sub-torus and the non-zero isotropy weights are a basis to its weight lattice. The quotient M/T is then a manifold-with-corners, decorated by…
This paper studies the existence of co-orientable taut foliations on 3-manifolds, particularly focusing on the Whitehead link exterior. We demonstrate fundamental obstructions to the existence of such foliations with certain Euler class…
Let $U$ be a space whose one point compactification $U^*$ is a CW-complex for which the added point $*$ is the only $0$-cell. We observe that the configuration space $Conf_n(U)$ of $n$ numbered distinct points in $U$ has no closed support…
By using Snappy, M. Brittenham and S. Hermiller discovered a very surprising example that $u(7_1\#\overline{7_1})\leq 5<6=u(7_1)+u(\overline{7_1})$, where $7_1$ is the $(2,7)$-torus knot and $\overline{7_1}$ is its mirror image. Based on…
We produce lattice extensions of a dense family of classical Schottky subgroups of the isometry group of $d$-dimensional hyperbolic space. The extensions produced are said to be systolic, since all loxodromic elements with short translation…
The OU matrix of a braid diagram is a square matrix that represents the number of over/under crossings of each pair of strands. In this paper, the OU matrix of a pure braid diagram is characterized for up to 5 strands. As an application,…
We have developed a reinforcement learning agent that often finds a minimal sequence of unknotting crossing changes for a knot diagram with up to 200 crossings, hence giving an upper bound on the unknotting number. We have used this to…
We study properties of "hyperbolic directions" in groups acting cocompactly on properly convex domains in real projective space, from three different perspectives simultaneously: the (coarse) metric geometry of the Hilbert metric, the…
Following work of Jaco and Rubinstein (2006), which (non-constructively) proved that any 3-manifold admits a one-vertex layered triangulation, we present an algorithm, with implementation using Regina, that uses a combinatorial presentation…