arXiv research

Extends Thurston's combinatorial characterization to all branched coverings of the 2-sphere.

LCD n-manifolds are linked to branched n-manifolds.

The paper studies rigidity of sphere packings on 3D manifolds with boundary.

Generalized Thurston's characterization for branched coverings of the 2-sphere.

This paper uses combinatorial Ricci flow to tackle Thurston's triangulation conjecture.

Let $f:S^2\to S^2$ be an orientation-preserving branched covering map of degree $d\geq 2$, and let $Σ$ be an oriented Jordan curve passing through the critical values of $f$. Then $Γ:=f^{-1}(Σ)$ is an oriented graph on the sphere. In a group email discussion in Fall 2010, W. Thurston introduced balanced planar graphs a…

Thurston's sphere packing on a 3-dimensional manifold is a generalization of Thusrton's circle packing on a surface, the rigidity of which has been open for many years. In this paper, we prove that Thurston's Euclidean sphere packing is locally determined by combinatorial scalar curvature up to scaling, which generaliz…

We show that the analog of Hamilton's Ricci flow in the combinatorial setting produces solutions which converge exponentially fast to Thurston's circle packing on surfaces. As a consequence, a new proof of Thurston's existence of circle packing theorem is obtained. As another consequence, Ricci flow suggests a new algo…

New combinatorial structures for Teichmüller spaces with Thurston's metric are explored.

Fractional combinatorial flow improves surface conformal structures.

Proves a conjecture about the maximum tet-volume of triangulations of a 2-sphere.

A polynomial invariant for veering triangulations helps in understanding 3-manifold fibers.

For triangulated surfaces, we introduce the combinatorial Calabi flow which is an analogue of smooth Calabi flow. We prove that the solution of combinatorial Calabi flow exists for all time. Moreover, the solution converges if and only if Thurston's circle packing exists. As a consequence, combinatorial Calabi flow pro…

The paper studies deformation of discrete conformal structures on surfaces using combinatorial curvature flows.

The paper introduces combinatorial curvature and flow for polyhedral surfaces, proving rigidity and solving the Yamabe problem.

New separation concepts for Anosov representations help bound Thurston asymmetric metric.

Unified proof of Nielsen-Thurston classification via Teichmüller's theorem.

We give a characterization of the action of the mapping class group on Thurston's space of measured laminations.

Thurston conjectured that a closed triangulated 3-manifold in which every edge has degree 5 or 6, and no two edges of degree 5 lie in a common 2-cell, has word-hyperbolic fundamental group. We establish Thurston's conjecture by proving that such a manifold admits a piecewise Euclidean metric of non-positive curvature a…

Developed theory for Thurston maps with a small set of essential singularities.

We classify elements of a cluster modular group into three types. We characterize them in terms of fixed point property of the action on the tropical compactifications associated with the corresponding cluster ensemble. The characterization gives an analogue of the Nielsen-Thurston classification theory on the mapping …

Constructs Teichmüller curve to study Thurston spine structure.

These revised lecture notes are an expository account of part of the proof of Thurston's Ending Lamination Conjecture for Kleinian surface groups, which states that such groups are uniquely determined by invariants that describe the asymptotic structure of the ends of their quotient manifolds.

In this paper, we introduce two discrete curvature flows, which are called $α$-flows on two and three dimensional triangulated manifolds. For triangulated surface $M$, we introduce a new normalization of combinatorial Ricci flow (first introduced by Bennett Chow and Feng Luo \cite{CL1}), aiming at evolving $α$ order di…

New method finds metrics on surfaces with prescribed curvatures using circle packings and surgery.

A divide on an orientable 2-orbifold gives rise to a fibration of the unit tangent bundle to the orbifold.We characterize the corresponding monodromies as exactly the products of a left-veering horizontal and a right-veering vertical antitwist with respect to a cylinder decomposition, where the notion of an antitwist i…

New flows represent Thurston norm ball faces, differing by veering mutations.

Thurston's Circle Pattern Theorem studies existence and rigidity of circle patterns of a given combinatorial type and the given non-obtuse exterior intersection angles. Using topological degree theory, variational principle, Teichmuller theory, and Sard's Theorem, this paper generalizes Circle Pattern Theorem to the ca…

Given a sub-hyperbolic semi-rational branched covering which is not CLH-equivalent a rational map, it must have the non-empty canonical Thurston obstruction. By using this canonical Thurston obstruction, we decompose this dynamical system in this paper into several sub-dynamical systems. Each of these sub-dynamical sys…

Study on Vaisman metrics on Kodaira-Thurston surface using pluriclosed flow.

We prove an explicit characterization of the points in Thurston's Master Teapot. This description can be implemented algorithmically to test whether a point in $\mathbb{C} \times \mathbb{R}$ belongs to the complement of the Master Teapot. As an application, we show that the intersection of the Master Teapot with the un…

We give a combinatorial characterization of generic minimal rigidity for planar periodic frameworks. The characterization is a true analogue of the Maxwell-Laman Theorem from rigidity theory: it is stated in terms of a finite combinatorial object and the conditions are checkable by polynomial time combinatorial algorit…

In this paper, we prove the global rigidity of sphere packings on 3-dimensional manifolds. This is a 3-dimensional analogue of the rigidity theorem of Andreev-Thurston and was conjectured by Cooper and Rivin. We also prove a global rigidity result using a combinatorial scalar curvature introduced by Ge and the author.

We introduce a number of new tools for the study of relatively hyperbolic groups. First, given a relatively hyperbolic group G, we construct a nice combinatorial Gromov hyperbolic model space acted on properly by G, which reflects the relative hyperbolicity of G in many natural ways. Second, we construct two useful bic…

The paper proves a combinatorial Ricci flow converges to hyperbolic structures on certain 3-manifolds.

The Thurston norm is derived from polytopes and applied to group cohomology.

We prove that a 3--dimensional hyperbolic cusp with convex polyhedral boundary is uniquely determined by its Gauss image. Furthermore, any spherical metric on the torus with cone singularities of negative curvature and all closed contractible geodesics of length greater than $2π$ is the metric of the Gauss image of som…

Motivated by the work of Leininger on hyperbolic equivalence of homotopy classes of closed curves on surfaces, we investigate a similar phenomenon for free groups. Namely, we study the situation when two elements $g,h$ in a free group $F$ have the property that for every free isometric action of $F$ on an $\mathbb{R}$-…

Combinatorial approach to compute satellite knot invariants using graph theory.

Combinatorial dimensions play an important role in the theory of machine learning. For example, VC dimension characterizes PAC learning, SQ dimension characterizes weak learning with statistical queries, and Littlestone dimension characterizes online learning. In this paper we aim to develop combinatorial dimensions th…

Abstract: Study of geometric structures on surfaces using various tools.

Paper solves long-standing problem of infinite ideal polyhedra in hyperbolic space.

We develop a tighter implementation of basic PL topology, which keeps track of some combinatorial structure beyond PL homeomorphism type. With this technique we clarify some aspects of PL transversality and give combinatorial proofs of a number of known results. New results include a combinatorial characterization of c…

The article confirms Thurston's conjecture for a specific class of 3-manifolds using combinatorial Ricci flow.

In this short note, we compare the combinatorial sign assignment of Manolescu, Ozsvath, Szabo and Thurston for grid homology of knots and links in 3-sphere with the sign assignment coming from a coherent system of orientations on Whitney disks. Although these constructions produce different signs, a small modification …

We study the Ozsváth-Szabó-Thurston transverse invariant in combinatorial link Floer homology for certain transverse cables $\mathscr{L}_{p,q}$ of transverse link $L$ in $S^3$. Transverse cables $\mathscr{L}_{p,q}$ are constructed from the grid diagram of $L$. The main result is $\hatθ(\mathscr{L}_{p,q})=0$ if and only…

The paper classifies Ricci solitons and studies harmonic vector fields on a specific Thurston geometry.

For a 3-manifold M, McMullen derived from the Alexander polynomial of M a norm on H^1(M, R) called the Alexander norm. He showed that the Thurston norm on H^1(M, R), which measures the complexity of a dual surface, is an upper bound for the Alexander norm. He asked if these two norms were equal on all of H^1(M,R) when …