arXiv research

The paper studies relationships between twisted torsion and connected sums of 3-manifolds.

We provide a significant extension of the twisted connected sum construction of G_2-manifolds, i.e. Riemannian 7-manifolds with holonomy group G_2, first developed by Kovalev; along the way we address some foundational questions at the heart of the twisted connected sum construction. Some of the main contributions of t…

Using earlier work of Sá Earp and the author [SEW13] we construct an irreducible unobstructed $G_2$-instanton on an $\mathrm{SO}(3)$-bundle over a twisted connected sum recently discovered by Crowley-Nordström [CN14].

We define a twisted version of Manolescu and Woodward's Symplectic Instanton homology, prove that this invariant fits into the framework of Wehrheim and Woodward's Floer Field theory, and describe its behaviour for connected sum and Dehn surgery.

New invariant shows Dehn twist on connected sum of homology tori is not isotopic to identity.

In this survey, we describe invariants that can be used to distinguish connected components of the moduli space of holonomy G_2 metrics on a closed 7-manifold, or to distinguish G_2-manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic. We also describe the twisted connected sum and extra-twisted connected sum construc…

Study on realizing subgroup twists in 3-manifolds.

Study G_2-manifolds from glued circles and Calabi-Yau manifolds.

When two boundary-parabolic representations of knot groups are given, we introduce the connected sum of these representations and show several natural properties including the unique factorization property. Furthermore, the complex volume of the connected sum is the sum of each complex volumes modulo $iπ^2$ and the twi…

The Gluck twist preserves the diffeomorphism type of certain satellite 2-knots.

We present a construction of closed 7-manifolds of holonomy G_2, which generalises Kovalev's twisted connected sums by taking quotients of the pieces in the construction before gluing. This makes it possible to realise a wider range of topological types, and Crowley, Goette and the author arXiv:1505.02734 use this to e…

Example of non-smooth isotopy using K3 surfaces.

The goal of this paper is the construction of a compact manifold with G$_2$ holonomy and nodal singularities along circles using twisted connected sum method. This paper finds matching building blocks by solving the Calabi conjecture on certain asymptotically cylindrical manifolds with nodal singularities. However, by …

We introduce a method to construct $G_2$-instantons over compact $G_2$-manifolds arising as the twisted connected sum of a matching pair of building blocks [Kov03,KL11,CHNP12]. Our construction is based on gluing $G_2$-instantons obtained from holomorphic bundles over the building blocks via the first named author's wo…

We record an answer to the question "In which dimensions is the connected sum of two closed almost complex manifolds necessarily an almost complex manifold?". In the process of doing so, we are naturally led to ask "For which values of l is the connected sum of l closed almost complex manifolds necessarily an almost co…

We propose a method to construct G_2-instantons over a compact twisted connected sum G_2-manifold, applying a gluing result of Sá Earp and Walpuski to instantons over a pair of 7-manifolds with a tubular end (see arXiv:1310.7933). In our example, the moduli spaces of the ingredient instantons are non-trivial, and their…

Study shows non-cyclic groups of diffeomorphisms can't act on certain 3-manifolds.

We review a method to construct $\rm{G}_2$--instantons over compact $\rm{G}_2$--manifolds arising as the twisted connected sum of a matching pair of Calabi-Yau $3$-folds with cylindrical end, based on the series of articles [SE15, SEW15, JMPSE17, MNSE17] by the author and others. The construction is based on gluing $\r…

Construct M-Theory lifts of type IIA orientifolds.

New contactomorphisms found via Dehn twists on 3-manifold sums.

Method constructs rigid associative submanifolds in twisted G2-manifolds.

We simplify and prove a splitting theorem for mapping class groups of connect sums of $S^2 imes S^1$.

The paper generalizes a result on smooth mapping class groups and proves a property of Dehn twists in 4-manifolds.

In this paper, we generalize a result of Satoh to show that for any odd natural $n$, the connected sum of the $n$-twist spun sphere of a knot $K$ and an unknotted projective plane in the 4-sphere is equivalent to the same unknotted projective plane. We additionally provide a fix to a small error in Satoh's proof of the…

Diagrams and Reidemeister moves for links in a twisted S^1-bundle over an unorientable surface are introduced. Using these diagrams, we compute the Kauffman Bracket Skein Module (KBSM) of the connected sum of two projective spaces. In particular, we show that it has torsion. We also present a new computation of the KBS…

In the present paper we describe compatible open books for the fibre connected sum along binding components of open books, as well as for the fibre connected sum along multi-sections of open books. As an application the first description provides simple ways of constructing open books supporting all tight contact struc…

Recently, at least 50 million of novel examples of compact $G_2$ holonomy manifolds have been constructed as twisted connected sums of asymptotically cylindrical Calabi-Yau threefolds. The purpose of this paper is to study mirror symmetry for compactifications of Type II superstrings in this context. We focus on $G_2$ …

We give a new, connected-sum-like construction of Riemannian metrics with special holonomy G_2 on compact 7-manifolds. The construction is based on a gluing theorem for appropriate elliptic partial differential equations. As a prerequisite, we also obtain asymptotically cylindrical Riemannian manifolds with holonomy SU…

We prove that the moduli space of holonomy G_2-metrics on a closed 7-manifold is in general disconnected by presenting a number of explicit examples. We detect different connected components of the G_2-moduli space by defining an integer-valued analytic refinement of the nu-invariant, a Z/48-valued defect invariant of …

M-theory on compact eight-manifolds with $\mathrm{Spin}(7)$-holonomy is a framework for geometric engineering of 3d $\mathcal{N}=1$ gauge theories coupled to gravity. We propose a new construction of such $\mathrm{Spin}(7)$-manifolds, based on a generalized connected sum, where the building blocks are a Calabi-Yau four…

We prove that the homology of the mapping class group of any 3-manifold stabilizes under connected sum and boundary connected sum with an arbitrary 3-manifold when both manifolds are compact and orientable. The stabilization also holds for the quotient group by twists along spheres and disks, and includes as particular…

We define a Z/48-valued homotopy invariant nu of a G_2-structure on the tangent bundle of a closed 7-manifold in terms of the signature and Euler characteristic of a coboundary with a Spin(7)-structure. For manifolds of holonomy G_2 obtained by the twisted connected sum construction, the associated torsion-free G_2-str…

We relate trimmed sums of twists in cylinders along a typical Teichmuller geodesic to the area Siegel-Veech constant.

We show that for each even integer $m\ge 2$, every reduced shadow with sufficiently many crossings is a shadow of a torus knot T(2,m+1), or of a twist knot $T_m$, or of a connected sum of $m$ trefoil knots.

New example of non-smooth isotopy after stabilization in 4-manifolds.

Nontrivial boundary Dehn twist found on K3#K3 manifold.

Prove integrality of genus-$g$ indices with adjoint Reidemeister torsions for twist knots and meridians.

In this article we construct a family of knot surgery $4$-manifolds admitting arbitrarily many nonisomorphic Lefschetz fibration structures with the same genus fiber. We obtain such families by performing knot surgery on an elliptic surface $E(2)$ using connected sums of fibered knots obtained by Stallings twist from a…

The paper proves properties of branched covers of specific knots and tori.

Third in a series, this paper constructs non-trivial Cayley fibrations with conical singularities.

The paper classifies manifolds with free torus actions and positive Ricci curvature.

Boundary Dehn twists become trivial after abelianization.

The Morse-Novikov number MN(L) of a smooth link L in the three-dimensional sphere is by definition the minimal possible number of critical points of a regular circle-valued Morse function on the link complement (the term regular means that the Morse function must have nice behaviour in a tubular neighbourhood of L). No…

A short proof for a theorem about composite knots.

In this paper we prove that the Casson-Gordon invariants of the connected sum of two knots split when the Alexander polynomials of the knots are coprime. As one application, for any knot K, all but finitely many algebraically slice twisted doubles of K are linearly independent in the knot concordance group.

We show that for a suitable class of ``Dirac-like'' operators there holds a Gluing Theorem for connected sums. More precisely, if $M_1$ and $M_2$ are closed Riemannian manifolds of dimension $n\ge 3$ together with such operators, then the connected sum $M_1 # M_2$ can be given a Riemannian metric such that the spectrum…

Study of codimension-1 embeddings in 3-manifolds using twist maps and push maps.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce Liouville hypersurfaces in contact manifolds, which generalize ribbons of Legendrian graphs and pages of supporting open books. Liouville hypersurfaces are used to define a gluing operation for contact manifolds called the Liouville connect sum. Performing this operation on a c…