arXiv research

Classifies ancient flows in a disc with boundary.

Study detects if a circuit bounds a disc using curve intersections.

We consider several natural sets of curves associated to a given Teichmüller disc, such as the systole set or cylinder set, and study their coarse geometry inside the curve graph. We prove that these sets are quasiconvex and agree up to uniformly bounded Hausdorff distance. Furthermore, we describe two operations on cu…

Ancient curve shortening flow in a disc with mixed boundary conditions is solved.

We give a proof that there exists a universal constant $K$ such that the disc graph associated to a surface $S$ forming a boundary component of a compact, orientable 3-manifold $M$ is $K$-quasiconvex in the curve graph of $S$. Our proof does not require the use of train tracks.

We study the intrinsic structure of parametric minimal discs in metric spaces admitting a quadratic isoperimetric inequality. We associate to each minimal disc a compact, geodesic metric space whose geometric, topological, and analytic properties are controlled by the isoperimetric inequality. Its geometry can be used …

New algebra connects braid group actions to disc curves.

We discuss some consequences of the existence of the holomorphic quadratic Hopf differential on a conformally immersed constant mean curvature topological disc with analytic boundary. In particular, we derive a formula for the mean curvature as a weighted average of the normal curvature of the boundary curve, and a con…

We prove a "gluing" theorem for monotone homotopies; a monotone homotopy is a homotopy through simple contractible closed curves which themselves are pairwise disjoint. We show that two monotone homotopies which have appropriate overlap can be replaced by a single monotone homotopy. The ideas used to prove this theorem…

In this paper we construct a properly embedded holomorphic disc in the unit ball $\mathbb{B}^2$ of $\mathbb{C}^2$ having a surprising combination of properties: on the one hand, it has finite area and hence is the zero set of a bounded holomorphic function on $\mathbb{B}^2$; on the other hand, its boundary curve is eve…

The rotation angle of a rolling disc is shown to be a geometric phase related to the Hopf fibration.

Minimal discs count as knot invariants in hyperbolic 4-space.

Let $F_g$ denote a closed oriented surface of genus $g$. A set of simple closed curves is called a filling of $F_g$ if its complement is a disjoint union of discs. The mapping class group $\text{Mod}(F_g)$ of genus $g$ acts on the set of fillings of $F_g$. The union of the curves in a filling forms a graph on the surfa…

We show some generic (robust) properties of smooth surfaces immersed in the real 3-space (Euclidean, affine or projective), in the neighbourhood of a {\em godron} (term due to R.Thom): an isolated parabolic point at which the (unique) asymptotic direction is tangent to the parabolic curve. With the help of these proper…

We solve the classical problem of Plateau in the setting of proper metric spaces. Precisely, we prove that among all disc-type surfaces with prescribed Jordan boundary in a proper metric space there exists an area minimizing disc which moreover has a quasi-conformal parametrization. If the space supports a local quadra…

In previous work with Schoenfeld, we considered a string-type chain complex of curves on surfaces, with differential given by resolving crossings, and computed the homology of this complex for discs. In this paper we consider the corresponding "string homology" of annuli. We find this homology has a rich algebraic stru…

Study uses Dynnikov coordinates to analyze actions of Dehn twists on a thrice-punctured disc.

Affine diffeomorphisms are undistorted in half-translation surfaces.

The Burau representation is a natural action of the braid group B_n on the free Z[t,t^{-1}]-module of rank n-1. It is a longstanding open problem to determine for which values of n this representation is faithful. It is known to be faithful for n=3. Moody has shown that it is not faithful for n>8 and Long and Paton imp…

Study quotients of curve complex actions by mapping class group.

Metric spaces with upper curvature bounds have controlled Dehn functions.

This article investigates when homotopies can be converted to monotone homotopies without increasing the lengths of curves. A monotone homotopy is one which consists of curves which are simple or constant, and in which curves are pairwise disjoint. We show that, if the boundary of a Riemannian disc can be contracted th…

We answer a question of Liokumovich-Nabutovsky-Rotman showing that if D is a Riemannian 2-disc with boundary length L, diameter d and area A << d then D can be filled by a homotopy where the lengths of the intermediate curves are bounded by $L+2d+O(\sqrt A)$.

The study shows that certain complex geometries are hyperbolic and contractible but fail to be CAT(0).

Study on surfaces minimizing elastic energy with boundary constraints.

The energy minimization problem associated to uniform, isotropic, linearly elastic rods leads to a geometric variational problem for the rod centerline, whose solutions include closed, knotted curves. We give a complete description of the space of closed and quasiperiodic solutions. The quasiperiodic curves are paramet…

A homogeneous nilpotent Lie group has a scaling automorphism determined by a grading of its Lie algebra. Many proofs of upper bounds for the Dehn function of such a group depend on being able to fill curves with discs compatible with this grading; the area of such discs changes predictably under the scaling automorphis…

We prove a sharp estimate on the expected value of the integral of the index of a simple random walk on the square or triangular lattice. This gives new lower bounds on the averaged Dehn function, which measures the expected area needed to fill a random curve with a disc.

We provide a new proof of the classical result that any closed rectifiable Jordan curve Gamma in space being piecewise of class C^2 bounds at least one immersed minimal surface of disc-type, under the additional assumption that the total curvature of Gamma is smaller than 6*Pi. In contrast to the methods due to Osserma…

We introduce \textcolor{red}{general} new techniques for computing the geometric index of a link $L$ in the interior of a solid torus $T$. These techniques simplify and unify previous ad hoc methods used to compute the geometric index in specific examples \textcolor{red}{ and allow the simple computation of geometric i…

Let $F_g$ be a closed orientable surface of genus $g$. A set $Ω= \{ γ_1, \dots, γ_s\}$ of pairwise non-homotopic simple closed curves on $F_g$ is called a \emph{filling system} or simply a \emph{filling} of $F_g$, if $F_g\setminus Ω$ is a union of $b$ topological discs for some $b\geq 1$. A filling system is called \em…

In this article we study complex properties of minimal Lagrangian submanifolds in Kaehler ambient spaces, and how they depend on the ambient curvature. In particular, we prove that, in the negative curvature case, minimal Lagrangians do not admit fillings by holomorphic discs. The proof relies on a mix of holomorphic c…

We define a geometric flow that is designed to change surfaces of cylindrical type spanning two disjoint boundary curves into solutions of the Douglas-Plateau problem of finding minimal surfaces with given boundary curves. We prove that also in this new setting and for arbitrary initial data, solutions of the Teichmüll…

Let $X$ be a Banach space or more generally a complete metric space admitting a conical geodesic bicombing. We prove that every closed $L$-Lipschitz curve $γ:S^1\rightarrow X$ may be extended to an $L$-Lipschitz map defined on the hemisphere $f:H^2\rightarrow X$. This implies that $X$ satisfies a quadratic isoperimetri…

Smoothly isotopic 3-discs in 4-sphere become identical after 5-dimensional push.

The paper proves conditions for the existence of holomorphic discs in Kähler manifolds.

Develops a new theory of width for embedded circles in Riemannian manifolds.

Study on the topology of ordered disc configurations, revealing nontrivial homotopy classes.

New knots found with tough, unsliceable discs.

Brunnian theta curves in 3D spheres have hyperbolic exteriors.

The reduced Burau representation $V_n$ of the braid group $B_n$ is obtained from the action of $B_n$ on the homology of an infinite cyclic cover of the disc with $n$ punctures. The group homology $H_*(B_n;V_n)$ of braid groups with coefficients in the complexified reduced Burau representation is calculated. Our topolog…

Let $(φ_t)$ be a holomorphic semigroup of the unit disc (i.e., the flow of a semicomplete holomorphic vector field) without fixed points in the unit disc and let $Ω$ be the starlike at infinity domain image of the Koenigs function of $(φ_t)$. In this paper we completely characterize the type of convergence of the orbit…

Given a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold M with a quasigeodesic flow we construct a π_1-equivariant sphere-filling curve in the boundary of hyperbolic space. Specifically, we show that any complete transversal P to the lifted flow on H^3 has a natural compactification as a closed disc that inherits a π_1 action. The embedd…

We consider billiard ball motion in a convex domain on a constant curvature surface influenced by the constant magnetic field. We examine the existence of integral of motion which is polynomial in velocities. We prove that if such an integral exists then the boundary curve of the domain determines an algebraic curve in…

The main theorem of this paper is a generalisation of well known results about Dehn surgery to the case of attaching handlebodies to a simple 3-manifold. The existence of a finite set of `exceptional' curves on the boundary of the 3-manifold is established. Provided none of these curves is attached to the boundary of a…

Study of Dehn twists on a disc with 3 points, solving conjugacy problem.

The paper explores isometric models and Busemann functions for Funk and Hilbert discs.

The Plateau-Douglas problem asks to find an area minimizing surface of fixed or bounded genus spanning a given finite collection of Jordan curves in Euclidean space. In the present paper we solve this problem in the setting of proper metric spaces admitting a local quadratic isoperimetric inequality for curves. We more…