arXiv research

New Legendrian knots found with equivalent Stein traces.

The topology of Stein surfaces and contact 3-manifolds is studied by means of handle decompositions. A simple characterization of homeomorphism types of Stein surfaces is obtained --- they correspond to open handlebodies with all handles of index lessthan or = 2. An uncountable collection of exotic R^4's is shown to ad…

We show that there exist infinitely many simply connected compact Stein 4-manifolds with b_2=2 such that they are all homeomorhic but mutually non-diffeomorphic, and they are Stein fillings of the same contact 3-manifold on their boundaries. We also describe their handlebody pictures.

A simple method constructs Lefschetz fibrations on compact Stein surfaces.

An open subset U of a complex surface can be topologically perturbed to yield an open subset whose inherited complex structure is Stein, if and only if U is homeomorphic to the interior of a handlebody whose handles all have index equal or less than 2.

From any 4-dimensional oriented handlebody X without 3- and 4-handles and with b_2>0, we construct arbitrary many compact Stein 4-manifolds which are mutually homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to each other, so that their topological invariants (their fundamental groups, homology groups, boundary homology groups, and …

The study of symplectic fillings for rational cuspidal curves.

In 1998, Gompf described a Stein domain structure on the disk cotangent bundle of any closed surface S, by a Legendrian handlebody diagram. We prove that Gompf's Stein domain is symplectomorphic to the disk cotangent bundle equipped with its canonical symplectic structure and the boundary of this domain is contactomorp…

The paper studies symplectic operations on Stein fillings of Brieskorn singularities.

We prove that every continuous map from a Stein manifold X to a complex manifold Y can be made holomorphic by a homotopic deformation of both the map and the Stein structure on X. In the absence of topological obstructions the holomorphic map may be chosen to have pointwise maximal rank. The analogous result holds for …

A simple characterization is given of open subsets of a complex surface that smoothly perturb to Stein open subsets. As applications, complex 2-space C^2 contains domains of holomorphy (Stein open subsets) that are exotic R^4's, and others homotopy equivalent to the 2-sphere but cut out by smooth, compact 3-manifolds. …

A unified summary is given of the existence theory of Stein manifolds in all dimensions, based on published and pending literature. Eliashberg's characterization of manifolds admitting Stein structures requires an extra delicate hypothesis in complex dimension 2, which can be eliminated by passing to the topological se…

We identify the canonical contact structure on the link of a simple elliptic or cusp singularity by drawing a Legendrian handlebody diagram of one of its Stein fillings. We also show that the canonical contact structure on the link of a numerically Gorenstein surface singularity is trivial considered as a real plane bu…

It is known that for coprime integers $p>q\geq 1$, the lens space $L(p^2,pq-1)$ bounds a rational ball, $B_{p,q}$, arising as the 2-fold branched cover of a (smooth) slice disk in $B^4$ bounding the associated 2-bridge knot. Lekilli and Maydanskiy give handle decompositions for each $B_{p,q}$. Whereas, Yamada gives an …

We study exotic smoothings of open 4-manifolds using the minimal genus function and its analog for end homology. While traditional techniques in open 4-manifold smoothing theory give no control of minimal genera, we make progress by using the adjunction inequality for Stein surfaces. Smoothings can be constructed with …

We show that, for each integer n, there exist infinitely many pairs of n-framed knots representing homeomorphic but non-diffeomorphic (Stein) 4-manifolds, which are the simplest possible exotic 4-manifolds regarding handlebody structures. To produce these examples, we introduce a new description of cork twists and util…

Study of contractible manifolds and their twists to determine if they are $S^4$.

New method constructs Lefschetz fibrations with different regular fibers.

In this article we study Weinstein structures endowed with a Lefschetz fibration in terms of the Legendrian front projection. First we provide a systematic recipe for translating from a Weinstein Lefschetz bifibration to a Legendrian handlebody. Then we present several applications of this technique to symplectic topol…

Given a 4-manifold X and an imbedding of T^{2} x B^2 into X, we describe an algorithm X --> X_{p,q} for drawing the handlebody of the 4-manifold obtained from X by (p,q)-logarithmic transforms along the parallel tori. By using this algorithm, we obtain a simple handle picture of the Dolgachev surface E(1)_{p,q}, from t…

We create Lefschetz fibrations for knot traces of specific types of knots.

The paper proves unique factorization of knotted handlebodies and examines handlebody-knot symmetry.

Complete classification of handlebody links up to six crossings.

Paper defines numerical criteria to test handlebody link irreducibility.

High-dimensional handlebodies are shown to be products of simpler shapes.

A handlebody-link is a disjoint union of embeddings of handlebodies in $S^3$ and an HL-homotopy is an equivalence relation on handlebody-links generated by self-crossing changes. The second author and Ryo Nikkuni classified the set of HL-homotopy classes of 2-component handlebody-links completely using the linking numb…

The JSJ decomposition helps classify genus two handlebody-knots.

We give examples of knots in a genus 2 handlebody which have nontrivial Dehn surgeries yielding handlebodies and show that these knots are not 1--bridge.

Finite presentation for a specific group in 3D handlebody topology.

Study on finiteness properties of handlebody mapping class groups.

Bridge positions of handlebody-knots are equivalent when stable.

We introduce several algebraic structures related to handlebody-knots, including $G$-families of biquandles, partially multiplicative biquandles and group decomposable biquandles. These structures can be used to color the semiarcs in $Y$-oriented spatial trivalent graph diagrams representing $S^1$-oriented handlebody-k…

A complex of incompressible surfaces in a handlebody is constructed so that it contains, as a subcomplex, the complex of curves of the boundary of the handlebody. For genus 2 handlebodies, the group of automorphisms of this complex is used to characterize the mapping class group of the handlebody. In particular, it is …

We generalize unoriented handlebody-links to the twisted virtual case, obtaining Reidemeister moves for handlebody-links in ambient spaces of the form $Σ\times [0,1]$ for $Σ$ a compact closed 2-manifold up to stable equivalence. We introduce a related algebraic structure known as twisted virtual bikeigebras whose axiom…

Paper introduces an invariant to distinguish handlebody-knot exteriors.

Homological stability proved for handlebody mapping class groups.

Defines annulus complex of handlebodies and proves its connectivity.

Enumerated all genus two handlebody-knots with seven crossings.

We give an explicit formula for the signature of handlebody bundles over the circle in terms of the homological monodromy. This gives a cobounding function of Meyer's signature cocycle on the mapping class group of a $3$-dimensional handlebody, i.e., the handlebody group. As an application, we give a topological interp…

Proves certain subgroups of genus 2 handlebody group are convex cocompact.

A handlebody-knot is a handlebody embedded in the 3-sphere. We establish a uniform method to construct invariants for handlebody-links. We introduce the category $\mathcal{T}$ of handlebody-tangles and present it by generators and relations. The result tells us that every functor on $\mathcal{T}$ that gives rise to inv…

We introduce the notion of a $G$-family of quandles which is an algebraic system whose axioms are motivated by handlebody-knot theory, and use it to construct invariants for handlebody-knots. Our invariant can detect the chiralities of some handlebody-knots including unknown ones.

3-manifolds with hyperbolic handlebody complements are studied.

Study Torelli subgroups of handlebody groups and their cohomology.

Proves finiteness for 3-manifolds from handlebodies with 2-handles.

We show that finite index subgroups of the handlebody group are rigid in their ambient mapping class group: any injective map of a finite index subgroup of the genus $g$ handlebody group into the genus $g$ mapping class group is conjugation by a mapping class group element. On the other hand, we construct an injection …

We give lower bounds for the tunnel number of knots and handlebody-knots. We also give a lower bound for the cutting number, which is a "dual" notion to the tunnel number in the handlebody-knot theory. We provide necessary conditions for constituent handlebody-knots by using $G$-family of quandles colorings. The above …

The paper explores handlebody versions of various diagram algebras.