arXiv research

Elliptic surfaces without 1-handles proven for specific cases.

Handles decompositions reveal new open book structures.

The paper describes handle decompositions and Kirby diagrams for plane algebraic curves.

The study shows conditions for elliptic surfaces without 1-handles.

A theorem on the existence of the unique minimal topologic handle decomposition of differentiable simply connected five-dimensional manifolds is proved. For a decomposition of this sort, the number of handles of each index is given.

We review Giroux's contact handles and contact handle attachments in dimension three and show that a bypass attachment consists of a pair of contact 1 and 2-handles. As an application we describe explicit contact handle decompositions of infinitely many pairwise non-isotopic overtwisted 3-spheres. We also give an alter…

The study describes handle decompositions and Kirby diagrams for line arrangements.

Study handles in 4-manifolds with cyclic fundamental group.

Study compact PL 4-manifolds with special handle decompositions.

Harer-Kas-Kirby conjectured that every handle decomposition of the elliptic surface E(1)_{2,3} requires both 1- and 3-handles. We prove that the elliptic surface E(n)_{p,q} has a handle decomposition without 1-handles for $n\geq 1$ and (p,q)=(2,3),(2,5),(3,4),(4,5).

Study shows knots surgered elliptic surfaces admit handle decompositions without 1- and 3-handles.

A double pants decomposition of a 2-dimensional surface is a collection of two pants decomposition of this surface introduced in arXiv:1005.0073v2. There are two natural operations acting on double pants decompositions: flips and handle twists. It is shown in arXiv:1005.0073v2 that the groupoid generated by flips and h…

Skein lasagna module calculates 4-manifold invariants using handle decompositions.

The paper calculates a new invariant for 4-manifolds using handle decompositions and skein relations.

New insights into knot fusion numbers via cabling.

We determine the structure of the circular handle decompositions of the family of free genus one knots. Namely, if k is a free genus one knot, then the handle number h(k)= 0, 1 or 2, and, if k is not fibered (that is, if h(k)>0), then k is almost fibered. For this, we develop practical techniques to construct circular …

New $4$-manifolds without $1$- and $3$-handles are created from knots.

New 4-manifolds found without 1- and 3-handles.

We present an approach to constructing broken Lefschetz fibrations (BLFs) $f:X\rightarrow S^2$ from a handle decomposition of a 4-manifold $X$. Given a handle decomposition as input these techniques yield explicit descriptions of the BLFs, and do not rely on classification results from contact topology or the choice of…

Given a rational homology sphere which bounds rational homology balls, we investigate the complexity of these balls as measured by the number of 1-handles in a handle decomposition. We use Casson-Gordon invariants to obtain lower bounds which also lead to lower bounds on the fusion number of ribbon knots. We use Levine…

In the present paper, we study deformations of polar weighted homogeneous polynomials which are also polar weighted homogeneous polynomials. We describe a round handle decomposition of the Milnor fibration of a deformation of a polar weighted homogeneous polynomial concretely and give the number of round handles by the…

D.Nash defined a family of homotopy 4-spheres in [11]. Proving that his manifolds ${\mathcal S}_{m,n,m',n'}$ are all real $S^4$, we find that they have handle decomposition with no 1-handles, two 2-handles and two 3-handles. The handle structures give new potential counterexamples of Property 2R conjecture.

We give an entirely geometric proof, without recourse to cellular homology, of the fact that $\partial^2=0$ in the chain complex defined by a handle decomposition of a given manifold. Topological invariance of the resulting `handle homology' is a consequence of Cerf theory.

The study solves a 2008 problem by Kalai about infinitely many homology-spheres.

The paper bounds the handle number of sutured manifolds using Morse-Novikov numbers and tunnel numbers.

New method uses Khovanov homology to distinguish exotic 4-manifolds.

We give a method for obtaining a handle decomposition of an $n$-manifold if the manifold is given by isometric side-pairings of a polyhedron in $\en$, $\sn$ or $\hn$. Every cycle of $k$-faces on the polyhedron corresponds to an $(n-k)$-handle of the manifold. Two applications of the method are given. One helps recogniz…

Review of gem theory's interactions with Kirby diagrams and trisections.

Bordered Heegaard Floer homology is an invariant for three-manifolds with boundary. In particular, this invariant associates to a handle decomposition of a surface F a differential graded algebra, and to an arc slide between two handle decompositions, a bimodule over the two algebras. In this paper, we describe these b…

Proves complex homology three-spheres can be bounded by many handles.

Two codimension-one submanifolds are cobordant if they have the same homology class.

Given a handle decomposition of a 4-manifold with boundary, and an open book decomposition of the boundary, we show how to produce a trisection diagram of a trisection of the 4-manifold inducing the given open book. We do this by making the original proof of the existence of relative trisections more explicit, in terms…

Simple branched coverings established between certain 4-manifolds.

New hyperbolic 4-manifolds found with special functions.

We construct an orientable ribbon surface F in B^4, which is universal in the following sense: any compact orientable pl 4-manifold having a handle decomposition with 0-, 1- and 2-handles can be represented as a cover of B^4 branched over F.

Starting with the Dolgachev surface E(1)_{2,3} we construct an infinite family of distinct exotic copies of the rational surface E(1), each of which admits a handlebody decomposition without 1- and 3- handles, and we draw these handlebodies.

We give new rational blowdown constructions of exotic CP^2#n(-CP^2) (5\leq n\leq 9) without using elliptic fibrations. We also show that our 4-manifolds admit handle decompositions without 1- and 3-handles, for 7\leq n\leq 9. A strategy for rational blowdown constructions of exotic CP^2#n(-CP^2) (1\leq n\leq 4) is also…

Concerns decompositions of smooth 4-manifolds as the union of two handlebodies, each with handles of index <=2 (``Heegard'' decompositions).Sample result: Two 2-complexes are (up to 2-deformation) dual spines of a Heegard decomposition of the 4-sphere if and only if they satisfy the conclusions of the Alexander-Lefshet…

In this paper we give explicit, handle-by-handle constructions of concave symplectic fillings of all closed, oriented contact 3-manifolds. These constructions combine recent results of Giroux relating contact structures and open book decompositions of 3-manifolds, earlier results of the author on attaching 4-dimensiona…

We consider a union of two pants decompositions of the same orientable 2-dimensional surface of any genus g. Each pants decomposition corresponds to some handlebody bounded by this surface, so two pants decompositions correspond to a Heegaard splitting of a 3-manifold. We introduce a groupoid FT acting on double pants …

Defines a universal state sum construction for various TQFTs.

FunBaT extends Tucker decomposition to handle continuous-indexed tensor data.

Study handles in 3D shapes, applies to material patterns.

We study simple wrinkled fibrations, a variation of the simplified purely wrinkled fibrations introduced by Williams, and their combinatorial description in terms of surface diagrams. We show that simple wrinkled fibrations induce handle decompositions on their total spaces which are very similar to those obtained from…

This paper continues the study of decompositions of a smooth 4-manifold into two handlebodies with handles of index $\leq2$. Part I gave existence results in terms of spines and chain complexes over the fundamental group of the ambient manifold. Here we assume that one side of a decomposition has larger fundamental gro…

This paper is a very brief introduction to knot theory. It describes knot coloring by quandles, the fundamental group of a knot complement, and handle-decompositions of knot complements.

Harer, Kas and Kirby have conjectured that every handle decomposition of the elliptic surface $E(1)_{2,3}$ requires both 1- and 3-handles. In this article, we construct a smooth 4-manifold which has the same Seiberg-Witten invariant as $E(1)_{2,3}$ and admits neither 1- nor 3-handles, by using rational blow-downs and K…

Let M be a closed, irreducible, genus two 3-manifold, and F a maximal collection of pairwise disjoint, closed, orientable, incompressible surfaces embedded in M. Then each component manifold M_i of M-F has handle number at most one, i.e. admits a Heegaard splitting obtained by attaching a single 1-handle to one or two …