arXiv research

Knot Floer homology matches fixed point Floer for fibred knots.

Study shows volume and genus unrelated for hyperbolic fibred knots.

We consider vector fields on knot/link complements in $S^3$ which are transverse to the fibres of a fibration of the complement over a circle. We prove that a large class of fibred knots/links, including all non-torus fibred 2-bridge knots, has the following property: any vector field transverse to the fibres of the fi…

We explore algebraic characterizations of 2-knots whose associated knot manifolds fibre over lower-dimensional orbifolds, and consider also some issues related to the groups of higher-dimensional fibred knots.

Ozsváth and Szabó conjectured that knot Floer homology detects fibred knots in $S^3$. We will prove this conjecture for null-homologous knots in arbitrary closed 3--manifolds. Namely, if $K$ is a knot in a closed 3--manifold $Y$, $Y-K$ is irreducible, and $\hat{HFK}(Y,K)$ is monic, then $K$ is fibred. The proof relies …

We say a knot $k$ in the 3-sphere $\mathbb S^3$ has {\it Property $IE$} if the infinite cyclic cover of the knot exterior embeds into $\mathbb S^3$. Clearly all fibred knots have Property $IE$. There are infinitely many non-fibred knots with Property $IE$ and infinitely many non-fibred knots without property $IE$. Both…

We complete the TOP classification of 2-knots with torsion-free, solvable knot group by showing that fibred 2-knots with closed fibre the Hantzsche-Wendt flat 3-manifold $HW$ are not reflexive, while every fibred 2-knot with closed fibre a $\mathbb{N}il^3$-manifold with base orbifold $S^2(3,3,3)$ is reflexive, and by g…

We introduce a new algebraic topological technique to detect non-fibred knots in the three sphere using the twisted Alexander invariants. As an application, we show that for any Seifert matrix of a knot with a nontrivial Alexander polynomial, there exist infinitely many non-fibered knots with the given Seifert matrix. …

We prove that there are exactly $6$ Nil Seifert fibred spaces which can be obtained by Dehn surgeries on non-trefoil knots in $S^3$, with $\{60, 144, 156, 288, 300\}$ as the exact set of all such surgery slopes up to taking the mirror images of the knots. We conjecture that there are exactly $4$ specific hyperbolic kno…

Study shows constraints on slopes for knot manifolds with specific tori.

We prove that every knot in the 3-space bounds an embedded punctured Moebius band whose other boundary component is a quasipositive fibred knot.

Construct divide knots with specific genus properties.

We show there exist infinitely many knots of every fixed genus $g\geq 2$ which do not admit surgery to an L-space, despite resembling algebraic knots and L-space knots in general: they are algebraically concordant to the torus knot $T(2,2g+1)$ of the same genus and they are fibred and strongly quasipositive.

Study shows fibred knots can't be untied with specific moves.

Ozsvath and Szabo conjectured that knot Floer homology detects fibred knots. We propose a strategy to approach this conjecture based on Gabai's theory of sutured manifold decomposition and contact topology. We implement this strategy for genus-one knots, obtaining as a corollary that, if rational surgery on a knot $K$ …

We determine the Thurston's geometry possesed by any Seifert fibered conemanifold structure in a Seifert manifold with orbit space $S^2$ and no more than three exceptional fibres, whose singular set, composed by fibres, has at most 3 components which can include exceptional or general fibres (the total number of except…

Ozsváth and Szabó conjectured that knot Floer homology detects fibred links. We will verify this conjecture for closed 3-braids, by classifying fibred closed 3-braids. In particular, given a nontrivial closed 3-braid, either it is fibred, or it differs from a fibred link by a half twist. The proof uses Gabai's method o…

For every genus $g\geq 2$, we construct an infinite family of strongly quasipositive fibred knots having the same Seifert form as the torus knot $T(2,2g+1)$. In particular, their signatures and four-genera are maximal and their homological monodromies (hence their Alexander module structures) agree. On the other hand, …

We consider the question of when is the closed manifold obtained by elementary surgery on an $n$-knot Seifert fibred over a 2-orbifold. After some observations on the classical case, we concentrate on the cases n=2 and 3. We have found a new family of 2-knots with torsion-free, solvable group, overlooked in earlier wor…

Given a closed 3--manifold $Y$, we show that the Heegaard Floer homology determines whether $Y$ fibres over the circle with a fibre of negative Euler characteristic. This is an analogue of an earlier result about knots proved by Ghiggini and the author.

We investigate the line between tight and overtwisted for surgeries on fibred transverse knots in contact 3-manifolds. When the contact structure $ξ_K$ is supported by the fibred knot $K \subset M$, we obtain a characterisation of when negative surgeries result in a contact structure with non-vanishing Heegaard Floer c…

We show that every $\mathbb{Z}$-torsion free knot module is realized by a ribbon 2-knot with group of geometric dimension at most 2, and give some partial results on the characterization of the knot modules of fibred ribbon 2-knots.

We study Dehn surgeries on null-homotopic knots that yield fibred $3$--manifolds when an additional (but natural) homological restriction is imposed. The major tool used is Gabai's theory of sutured manifold decomposition. Such surgeries are negative examples to a question of Michel Boileau. Another result we will prov…

A torti-rational knot, denoted by K(2a,b|r), is a knot obtained from the 2-bridge link B(2a,b) by applying Dehn twists an arbitrary number of times, r, along one component of B(2a,b). We determine the genus of K(2a,b|r) and solve a question of when K(2a,b|r) is fibred. In most cases, the Alexander polynomials determine…

We correct a mistake on the citation of JSJ theory in \cite{Ni}. Some arguments in \cite{Ni} are also slightly modified accordingly.

We classify $5$-manifolds with fundamental group $\mathbb Z$ and $π_{2}$ a finitely generated abelian group in terms of the cup product on the second cohomology of the universal covering. The classification result is applied to study simple knots $k \colon S^{3} \subset S^{5}$ and the question, which compact topologica…

We study the left-orderability of the fundamental groups of cyclic branched covers of links which admit co-oriented taut foliations. In particular we do this for cyclic branched covers of fibred knots in integer homology $3$-spheres and cyclic branched covers of closed braids. The latter allows us to complete the proof…

2-knot manifolds have Seifert fibered base orbifolds.

It is not known whether there exists a computable function bounding the number of Pachner moves needed to connect any two triangulation of a compact 3-manifold. In this paper we find an explicit bound of this kind for all Haken 3-manifolds which contain no fibred submanifolds as strongly simple pieces of their JSJ-deco…

A Dehn surgery on a knot $K$ in $S^3$ is exceptional if it produces a reducible, toroidal or Seifert fibred manifold. It is known that a large arborescent knot admits no such surgery unless it is a type II arborescent knot. The main theorem of this paper shows that up to isotopy there are exactly three large arborescen…

This paper gives a new obstruction for ribbon-move equivalence of 2-knots. Let $K$ and $K'$ be 2-knots. Let $K$ and $K'$ are ribbon-move equivalent. One corollary to our main theorem is as follows. A 2-dimensional fibered knot whose fiber is the punctured 3-dimensional torus is not ribbon-move equivalent to any 2-dimen…

We calculate Blanchfield pairings of 3-manifolds. In particular, we give a formula for the Blanchfield pairing of a fibred 3-manifold and we give a new proof that the Blanchfield pairing of a knot can be expressed in terms of a Seifert matrix.

Study of knotted defects in smectic liquid crystals using topological knot theory.

We establish results concerning the profinite completions of 3-manifold groups. In particular, we prove that the complement of the figure-eight knot $S^3-K$ is distinguished from all other compact 3-manifolds by the set of finite quotients of its fundamental group. In addition, we show that if $M$ is a compact 3-manifo…

We give a criterion for an open book to contain an n-times iterated Hopf plumbing summand. As an application, we show that fibre surfaces of positive braid knots admit a trefoil plumbing structure.

We consider Chern-Simons theory with complex gauge group and present a complete non-perturbative evaluation of the path integral (the partition function and certain expectation values of Wilson loops) on Seifert fibred 3-Manifolds. We use the method of Abelianisation. In certain cases the path integral can be seen to f…

We present classification results for exceptional Legendrian realisations of torus knots. These are the first results of that kind for non-trivial topological knot types. Enumeration results of Ding-Li-Zhang concerning tight contact structures on certain Seifert fibred manifolds with boundary allow us to place upper bo…

These are notes from lectures given at the Clay Institute Summer School on "Floer homology, gauge theory and low-dimensional topology" (Budapest, 2004). The first part describes as background some of the geometry of symplectic fibre bundles and their monodromy. The second part, overviewing joint work with Paul Seidel, …

The Cabling Conjecture states that surgery on hyperbolic knots in $S^3$ never produces reducible manifolds. In contrast, there do exist hyperbolic knots in some lens spaces with non-prime surgeries. Baker constructed a family of such hyperbolic knots and posed a conjecture that his examples encompass all hyperbolic kno…

New examples show some manifolds can't be decomposed.

It was recently shown that there exists an explicit bound for the number of Pachner moves needed to connect any two triangulation of any Haken 3-manifold which contains no fibred sub-manifolds as strongly simple pieces of its JSJ-decomposition. In this paper we prove a generalisation of that result to all knot compleme…

We show that there are only finitely many homogeneous links whose Conway polynomial has any given degree. Using this we give an example of an inhomogeneous, fibred knot. Secondly, we show how to compute the monodromy of a homogeneous link complement from a homogeneous braid word representative.

Let E(1)_K denote the closed 4-manifold that is homotopy equivalent (hence homeomorphic) to the rational elliptic surface E(1) and is obtained by performing Fintushel-Stern knot surgery on E(1) using a knot K in S^3. We construct an infinite family of homologous non-isotopic symplectic tori representing a primitive hom…

The paper establishes a new pseudoisotopy result for embedding spaces, leading to computations of homotopy groups of long knots.

The goal of this book is to characterize algebraically the closed 4-manifolds that fibre nontrivially or admit geometries in the sense of Thurston, or which are obtained by surgery on 2-knots, and to provide a reference for the topology of such manifolds and knots. The first chapter is purely algebraic. The rest of the…

This paper is a computation of the homotopy type of K, the space of long knots in R^3, the same space of knots studied by Vassiliev via singularity theory. Each component of K corresponds to an isotopy class of long knot, and we `enumerate' the components via the companionship trees associated to the knot. The knots wi…

We describe a procedure that creates an explicit complex-valued polynomial function of three-dimensional space, whose nodal lines are the three-twist knot $5_2$. The construction generalizes a similar approach for lemniscate knots: a braid representation is engineered from finite Fourier series and then considered as t…

We write down an explicit formula for the $+$ version of the Heegaard Floer homology (as an absolutely graded vector space over an arbitrary field) of the results of Dehn surgery on a knot $K$ in $S^3$ in terms of homological data derived from $CFK^{\infty}(K)$. This allows us to prove some results about Dehn surgery o…