arXiv research

Determine pairs of torus knots with genus one cobordisms, with exceptions.

Study eigenvalues of curvature operators to annihilate cobordism invariants.

Paper shows string cobordism at 24 dims can be determined by elliptic genus.

New cobordisms found between certain quasipositive knots.

New invariants refine link homology, showing large genus differences.

Study non-orientable link cobordisms using Floer homologies to prove inequalities.

We refine prior bounds on how the multivariable signature and the nullity of a link change under link cobordisms. The formula generalizes a series of results about the 4-genus having their origins in the Murasugi-Tristram inequality, and at the same time extends previously known results about concordance invariance of …

We show that if a link L with non-zero Alexander polynomial admits a locally flat cobordism to a `weakly m-split link', then the cobordism must have genus at least (m-1)/2. This generalises a recent result of J. Pardon.

Large PL surfaces in homology balls can have arbitrarily high genus.

Upper bounds for Legendrian links in tight contact 3-manifolds.

This paper studies cobordism and concordance for virtual knots. We define the affine index polynomial, prove that it is a concordance invariant for knots and links (explaining when it is defined for links), show that it is also invariant under certain forms of labeled cobordism and study a number of examples in relatio…

We discuss the cobordism type of spin manifolds with nonnegative sectional curvature. We show that in each dimension $4k \geq 12$, there are infinitely many cobordism types of simply connected and nonnegatively curved spin manifolds. Moreover, we raise and analyze a question about possible cobordism obstructions to non…

In the symplectization of standard contact $3$-space, $\mathbb R \times \mathbb R^3$, it is known that an orientable Lagrangian cobordism between a Legendrian knot and itself, also known as an orientable Lagrangian endocobordism for the Legendrian knot, must have genus $0$. We show that any Legendrian knot has a non-or…

The study counts critical points in knot cobordisms using abelian and metacyclic invariants.

The paper studies link concordance and cobordisms using Floer homology.

The study connects knot Floer homology and Lagrangian cobordisms.

Study shows torsion order bounds band-unlinking number for knot cobordisms.

We show that the link cobordism maps defined by the author are graded and satisfy a grading change formula. Using the grading change formula, we prove a new bound for $Υ_K(t)$ for knot cobordisms in negative definite 4-manifolds. As another application, we show that the link cobordism maps associated to a connected, cl…

We construct cobordisms of small genus between torus knots and use them to determine the cobordism distance between torus knots of small braid index. In fact, the cobordisms we construct arise as the intersection of a smooth algebraic curve in $\mathbb{C}^2$ with the unit 4-ball from which a 4-ball of smaller radius is…

The paper proves that a specific manifold is unitary cobordant to S^2 × S^6.

Study Lagrangian zigzag cobordisms for Legendrian knots, comparing to smooth concordance.

Study on the cobordism distance between knots and their reverses.

New cobordism maps for instanton knot homology help compute surgeries on knots.

Let $\mathcal{A}_{g,d}$ be the (topological) cobordism category of orientable surfaces whose connected components are homeomorphic to either $S^1 \times I$ with one incoming and one outgoing boundary component or the surface $Σ_{g,d}$ of genus $g$ and $d$ boundary components that are all incoming. In this paper, we stu…

In this paper we define and investigate Z/2-homology cobordism invariants of Z/2-homology 3-spheres which turn out to be related to classical invariants of knots. As an application we show that many lens spaces have infinite order in the Z/2-homology cobordism group and we prove a lower bound for the slice genus of a k…

Squeezed knots are slices of minimal cobordisms; obstructions come from quantum knot invariants.

The abstract introduces a new cyclic structure for surfaces.

We introduce the notion of ascent sliceness of virtual knots. A representative of a virtual knot is an embedding $S^1 \hookrightarrow Σ_{g} \times I$, for $Σ_g$ a closed connected oriented surface of genus $g$; the virtual knot represented is slice if there exists a pair consisting of a disc $D$ and an oriented…

In this paper, we compute the slice genus for many low-crossing virtual knots. For instance, we show that 1295 out of 92800 virtual knots with 6 or fewer crossings are slice, and that all but 248 of the rest are not slice. Key to these results are computations of Turaev's graded genus, which we show extends to give an …

We introduce a new link invariant called the algebraic genus, which gives an upper bound for the topological slice genus of links. In fact, the algebraic genus is an upper bound for another version of the slice genus proposed here: the minimal genus of a surface in the four-ball whose complement has infinite cyclic fun…

We introduce a new class of links for which we give a lower bound for the slice genus $g_*$, using the generalized Rasmussen invariant. We show that this bound, in some cases, allows one to compute $g_*$ exactly; in particular, we compute $g_*$ for torus links. We also study another link invariant: the strong slice gen…

We study the homotopy type of the harmonic compactification of the moduli space of a 2-cobordism S with one outgoing boundary component, or equivalently of the space of Sullivan diagrams of type S on one circle. Our results are of two types: vanishing and non-vanishing. In our vanishing results we are able to show that…

The paper introduces a cobordism for Khovanov homology crossing change and categorifies Vassiliev skein relations.

This paper defines a theory of cobordism for virtual knots and studies this theory for standard and rotational virtual knots and links. Non-trivial examples of virtual slice knots are given. Determinations of the four-ball genus of positive virtual knots are given using the results of a companion paper by the author an…

A symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$ is called {\em (symplectically) uniruled} if there is a nonzero genus zero GW invariant involving a point constraint. We prove that symplectic uniruledness is invariant under symplectic blow-up and blow-down. This theorem follows from a general Relative/Absolute correspondence for a symple…

The paper calculates a knot invariant for 3-braid knots.

Study Khovanov homology of Turaev genus one links, finding a trivial summand.

We investigate constraints on embeddings of a non-orientable surface in a $4$-manifold with the homology of $M \times I$, where $M$ is a rational homology $3$-sphere. The constraints take the form of inequalities involving the genus and normal Euler class of the surface, and either the Ozsváth--Sazbó $d$-invariants or …

Study on Whitehead doubles and their sliceness properties.

We show that the location of the first singularity of the Upsilon function of an algebraic knot is determined by the first term of its Puiseux characteristic sequence. In many cases this gives better bounds than the tau invariant on the genus of a cobordism between algebraic knots.

We prove that for any winding number $m>0$ pattern $P$ and winding number $-m$ pattern $Q$, there exist knots $K$ such that the minimal genus of a cobordism between $P(K)$ and $Q(K)$ is arbitrarily large. This answers a question posed by Cochran-Harvey [CH17] and generalizes a result of Kim-Livingston [KL05].

We use grid diagrams to investigate the Ozsvath-Szabo concordance invariant tau, and to prove that |tau(K_1)-tau(K_2)|<=g, whenever there is a genus g knot cobordism joining K_1 to K_2. This leads to an entirely grid diagram-based proof of Kronheimer-Mrowka's theorem, formerly known as the Milnor conjecture.

We use the knot homology of Khovanov and Lee to construct link concordance invariants generalizing the Rasmussen $s$-invariant of knots. The relevant invariant for a link is a filtration on a vector space of dimension $2^{|L|}$. The basic properties of the $s$-invariant all extend to the case of links; in particular, a…

New Seifert surfaces in 4-ball differ even when pushed in.

The paper contains an essentially self-contained treatment of Khovanov homology, Khovanov-Lee homology as well as the Rasmussen invariant for virtual knots and virtual knot cobordisms which directly applies to classical knot and classical knot cobordisms. To do so, we give an alternate formulation for the Manturov defi…

Given a connected cobordism between two knots in the 3-sphere, our main result is an inequality involving torsion orders of the knot Floer homology of the knots, and the number of local maxima and the genus of the cobordism. This has several topological applications: The torsion order gives lower bounds on the bridge i…

Manolescu correction terms are numerical invariants of homology three-spheres arising from $\mathrm{Pin}(2)$-equivariant Seiberg-Witten theory that contain information about homology cobordism. We discuss several constraints on these invariants for homology spheres obtained by Dehn surgery on a knot in the three-sphere…

Paper introduces Bar-Natan homology for special links in a modified space.