相关论文: Meridional Almost Normal Surfaces in Knot Compleme…

Given any connected, open 3-manifold $U$ having finitely many ends, a non-compact 3-manifold $M$ is constructed having the following properties: the interior of $M$ is homeomorphic to $U$; the boundary of $M$ is the disjoint union of…

We use the combinatorial techniques of graphs of intersection to study reducible Dehn surgeries on knots in the three-sphere. In particular, in the event that a reducible surgery on a knot K in the three-sphere of slope r produces a…

Suppose a knot in a $3$-manifold is in $n$-bridge position. We consider a reduction of the knot along a bridge disk $D$ and show that the result is an $(n-1)$-bridge position if and only if there is a bridge disk $E$ such that $(D, E)$ is a…

Meier and Zupan showed that every surface in the four-sphere admits a bridge trisection and can therefore be represented by three simple tangles. This raises the possibility of applying methods from link homology to knotted surfaces. We use…

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…

Let K be a knot embedded in a Heegaard surface S for a closed orientable 3-manifold M. We define K-stable equivalence between pairs (S, K) and (S', K) in M, and we prove that any two pairs are K-stably equivalent in M if they have the same…

We prove a simple necessary and sufficient condition for a two-bridge knot K(p,q) to be quasipositive, based on the continued fraction expansion of p/q. As an application, coupled with some classification results in contact and symplectic…

We exhibit an algorithm to determine the bridge number of a hyperbolic knot in the 3-sphere. The proof uses adaptations of almost normal surface theory for compact surfaces with boundary in ideally triangulated knot exteriors.

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…

This paper gives necessary and sufficient conditions on a compact, connected, orientable 3-manifold M for it to contain a knot K such that M-K is irreducible and pi_1(M) embeds in pi_1(M-K). This result provides counterexamples to 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 $T$ be a graph in a compact, orientable 3--manifold $M$ and let $\Gamma$ be a subgraph. $T$ can be placed in bridge position with respect to a Heegaard surface $H$. We show that if $H$ is what we call $(T,\Gamma)$-c-weakly reducible in…

In this paper, we characterize closed incompressible surfaces of genus two in the complements of 3-bridge knots and links. This characterization includes that of essential 2-string tangle decompositions for 3-bridge knots and links.

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…

Let $M$ be a connected, closed, oriented three-manifold and $K$, $L$ two rationally null-homologous oriented simple closed curves in $M$. We give an explicit algorithm for computing the linking number between $K$ and $L$ in terms of a…

The Meridional Rank Conjecture asks whether the bridge number of a knot in $S^3$ is equal to the minimal number of meridians needed to generate the fundamental group of its complement. In this paper we investigate the analogous conjecture…

Every noncompact surface is shown to have a (3,6)-tight triangulation, and applications are given to the generic rigidity of countable bar-joint frameworks in R^3. In particular, every noncompact surface has a (3,6)-tight triangulation that…

We adapt Seifert's algorithm for classical knots and links to the setting of tri-plane diagrams for bridge trisected surfaces in the 4-sphere. Our approach allows for the construction of a Seifert solid that is described by a Heegaard…

We introduce the concept of a bridge trisection of a neatly embedded surface in a compact four-manifold, generalizing previous work with Alexander Zupan in the setting of closed surfaces in closed four-manifolds. Our main result states that…

Tollefson described a variant of normal surface theory for 3-manifolds, called Q-theory, where only the quadrilateral coordinates are used. Suppose $M$ is a triangulated, compact, irreducible, boundary-irreducible 3-manifold. In Q-theory,…