arXiv research

The paper classifies homotopy ribbon discs with specific groups.

Let $Γ$ be either the infinite cyclic group $\mathbb{Z}$ or the Baumslag-Solitar group $\mathbb{Z} \ltimes \mathbb{Z}[\frac{1}{2}]$. Let $K$ be a slice knot admitting a slice disc $D$ in the 4-ball whose exterior has fundamental group $Γ$. We classify the $Γ$-homotopy ribbon slice discs for $K$ up to topological ambien…

Solves Skopenkov's problem on graph embedding criteria.

We prove that a Casson tower of height 4 contains a flat embedded disc bounded by the attaching circle, and we prove disc embedding results for height 2 and 3 Casson towers which are embedded into a 4-manifold, with some additional fundamental group assumptions. In the proofs we create a capped grope from a Casson towe…

Study shows knots with similar Blanchfield forms can be homotopy ribbon concordant.

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

We study the ribbon discs that arise from a symmetric union presentation of a ribbon knot. A natural notion of symmetric ribbon number is introduced and compared with the classical ribbon number. We show that the gap between these numbers can be arbitrarily large by constructing an infinite family of ribbon knots with …

We study the relationship between fibered ribbon 1-knots and fibered ribbon 2-knots by studying fibered slice disks with handlebody fibers. We give a characterization of fibered homotopy-ribbon disks and give analogues of the Stallings twist for fibered disks and 2-knots. As an application, we produce infinite families…

New knots bound multiple non-isotopic ribbon disks.

Kirby diagrams for exotic R^4's constructed from specific knot complements.

Study calculates homotopy groups and derivatives for disc diffeomorphisms.

We prove that the map on knot Floer homology induced by a strongly homotopy-ribbon concordance is injective.

Ribbon 2-knotted objects are locally flat embeddings of surfaces in 4-space which bound immersed 3-manifolds with only ribbon singularities. They appear as topological realizations of welded knotted objects, which is a natural quotient of virtual knot theory. In this paper we consider ribbon tubes and ribbon torus-link…

We show that if a link J in the 3-sphere is homotopy ribbon concordant to a link L then the Alexander polynomial of L divides the Alexander polynomial of J.

Kervaire's sphere-link is equivalent to a ribbon sphere-link, simplifying complex 2-complexes.

Study ribbon concordance and minimal compressions, proving new results about fibered knots.

New insights into knot fusion numbers via cabling.

Perelman's proof confirmed, new method uses 4D topology.

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…

New theorem connects handle-ribbon knots to slice derivatives.

We study a certain class of embedded two-foams that arise from gluing discs into ribbon torus knots along nonintersecting torus meridians. We exhibit several equivalent diagrammatic formalisms for these objects and identify several of their invariants, including a unique prime decomposition.

We consider knotted annuli in 4-space, called 2-string-links, which are knotted surfaces in codimension two that are naturally related, via closure operations, to both 2-links and 2-torus links. We classify 2-string-links up to link-homotopy by means of a 4-dimensional version of Milnor invariants. The key to our proof…

The framed little 2-discs operad is homotopy equivalent to a cyclic operad. We show that the derived modular envelope of this cyclic operad (i.e., the modular operad freely generated in a homotopy invariant sense) is homotopy equivalent to the modular operad made from classifying spaces of diffeomorphism groups of 3-di…

A criterion is given for cutting out disks with ribbons from a Möbius strip.

The reduced peripheral system was introduced by Milnor in the fifties for the study of links up to link-homotopy, i.e. up to isotopies and crossing changes within each link component. However, for four or more components, this invariant does not yield a complete link-homotopy invariant. This paper provides two characte…

Standardizes Dunfield-Gong's 4-sphere, solves knot sliceness problem.

Given an $n$-gon, the poset of all collections of pairwise non-crossing diagonals is isomorphic to the face poset of some convex polytope called \textit{associahedron}. We replace in this setting the $n$-gon (viewed as a disc with $n$ marked points on the boundary) with an arbitrary oriented surface with a number of la…

In this note, I discuss in some detail the dual version of the ribbon graph decomposition of the moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces with boundary and marked points, which I introduced in math.AG/0402015, and used in math.QA/0412149 to construct open-closed topological conformal field theories. This dual version of the r…

New examples of knots with infinitely many inequivalent slice disks.

This article introduces planar ribbons, Vergili ribbon complexes and ribbon nerves in Alexandroff-Hopf-Whitehead CW (Closure finite Weak) topological spaces. A {\em planar ribbon} (briefly, {ribbon}) in a CW space is the closure of a pair of nesting, non-concentric filled cycles that includes the boundary but does not …

Modified proof constructs dual spheres for 4-manifolds.

We define pointwise partial differential relations for holomorphic discs. Given a relative homotopy class, a relation, and a generic almost complex structure we provide the moduli space of discs which have an injective point with the structure of a smooth manifold. Applications to the local behaviour are given and an a…

We define an obstruction for a knot to be Z[Z]-homology ribbon, and use this to provide restrictions on the integers that can occur as the triple linking numbers of derivative links of knots that are either homotopy ribbon or doubly slice. Our main application finds new non-doubly slice knots. In particular this gives …

New phenomena in 4-manifolds show discs with special properties.

Constructs a functor for equivariant smooth h-cobordisms.

New examples of Schoenflies balls are produced using a 5D approach.

For a group G, the notion of a ribbon G-category was introduced by the second author in a previous work with a view towards constructing 3-dimensional homotopy quantum field theories (HQFT's) with target K(G,1). We discuss here how to derive ribbon G-categories from a simple complex Lie algebra g where G is the center …

For M_r = #_r(S^p \times S^p), p=3, 7, we calculate the group of isotopy classes of orientation preserving diffeomorphisms of $M_r$ modulo isotopy classes with representatives which are the identity outside a 2p-disc and also the group of homotopy classes of orientation preserving homotopy equivalences of M_r.

Calegari's 4-spheres from fibered knots are proven standard.

After G. Perelman's solution of the Poincare Conjecture, this is a different way toward it. Given a simply connected, closed 3-manifold M, we produce a homotopy disc H, which arises from M by a finite sequence of simple modifications and, almost miraculously, can be imbedded into the ordinary space R^3. It follows that…

The paper describes the structure of injective LOT-complexes and proves they are aspherical.

Groups satisfy linear surface isoperimetric functions.

New energy model avoids self-intersections in curve optimization.

Motivated by string topology and the arc operad, we introduce the notion of quasi-operads and consider four (quasi)-operads which are different varieties of the operad of cacti. These are cacti without local zeros (or spines) and cacti proper as well as both varieties with fixed constant size one of the constituting lo…

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…

Algorithms compute invariants of 4-manifolds as branched covers.

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 $L+2d+O(\sqrt A)$.

We define a generalization of virtual links to arbitrary dimensions by extending the geometric definition due to Carter et al. We show that many homotopy type invariants for classical links extend to invariants of virtual links. We also define generalizations of virtual link diagrams and Gauss codes to represent virtua…