arXiv research

Khovanov homology fails to differentiate certain slice disks.

We study the classification of slice disks of knots up to isotopy and diffeomorphism using an invariant in knot Floer homology. We compute the invariant of a slice disk obtained by deform-spinning, and show that it can be effectively used to distinguish non-isotopic slice disks with diffeomorphic complements. Given a s…

New disks found with similar outer shapes.

The paper explores slice disks and their properties using satellite operations and knot Floer homology.

We construct an infinite family of slice disks with the same exterior, which gives an affirmative answer to an old question asked by Hitt and Sumners in 1981. Furthermore, we prove that these slice disks are ribbon disks.

Algorithm finds ribbon disks for alternating knots, resolving sliceness for most prime knots.

New examples of knots with infinitely many inequivalent slice disks.

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 exotic 4D spaces found using knot slicing techniques.

New method uses Floer homology to create exotic disk pairs.

New findings on knots that are both topologically and rationally slice.

The study explores deep and shallow slice knots in 4-manifolds, linking them to conjectures and proving existence and nonexistence results.

New invariants prove exotic slice disks for knots.

New bounds on slice genus from knot invariants.

New proof for some knots being topologically slice.

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

A knot is said to be slice if it bounds a smooth properly embedded disk in the 4-ball. We demonstrate that the Conway knot, 11n34 in the Rolfsen tables, is not slice. This completes the classification of slice knots under 13 crossings, and gives the first example of a non-slice knot which is both topologically slice an…

New knots show linear independence in slice concordance.

We study three knot invariants related to smoothly immersed disks in the four-ball. These are the four-ball crossing number, which is the minimal number of normal double points of such a disk bounded by a given knot; the slicing number, which is the minimal number of crossing changes to a slice knot; and the concordanc…

We prove that there exist infinitely many topologically slice knots which cannot bound a smooth null-homologous disk in any definite 4-manifold. Furthermore, we show that we can take such knots so that they are linearly independent in the the knot concordance group.

Spectral sequence connects knot homologies to quotient knots.

Study equivariant 4-genus of knots in symmetric 4-manifolds.

We consider the set of connected surfaces in the 4-ball with boundary a fixed knot in the 3-sphere. We define the stabilization distance between two surfaces as the minimal $g$ such that we can get from one to the other using stabilizations and destabilizations through surfaces of genus at most $g$. Similarly, we consi…

The study examines obstructions to links being shake slice.

In this note we define the notion of collarable slices of Lagrangian submanifolds. Those are slices of Lagrangian submanifolds which can be isotoped through Lagrangian submanifolds to a cylinder over a Legendrian embedding near a contact hypersurface. Such a notion arises naturally when studying intersections of Lagran…

The paper generalizes the $T$-genus to characterize slice knots and slice genus.

New 4-manifold accounts for rationally slice knots.

A knot K in the 3-sphere is superslice if there is a slice disk D in the 4-ball such that the double of D along K is the unknotted 2-sphere S in $S^4$. Answering a question of Livingston-Meier, we find smoothly slice (in fact doubly slice) knots in the 3-sphere with Alexander polynomial equal to 1 that are not smoothly…

New examples show non-locally-flat PL-disk bounds in rational homology balls but not in integer homology balls.

Study proves obstructions to equivariantly slice strongly negative amphichiral knots.

Lisa Piccirillo solved the mystery of the Conway knot's sliceness.

A link in the 3-sphere is called (smoothly) slice if its components bound disjoint smoothly embedded disks in the 4-ball. More generally, given a 4-manifold M with a distinguished circle in its boundary, a link in the 3-sphere is called M-slice if its components bound in the 4-ball disjoint embedded copies of M. A 4-ma…

Study on slicing knots in 4-manifolds, focusing on CP^2-slicing numbers.

A link in the 3-sphere is homotopically trivial, according to Milnor, if its components bound disjoint maps of disks in the 4-ball. This paper concerns the question of what spaces give rise to the same class of homotopically trivial links when used in place of disks in an analogous definition. We show that there are 4-…

Study knot Floer homology to create concordance invariants and slice genus bounds.

In this paper we construct some invariants of spatial graphs by disk-summing the constituent knots and show the delta edge-homotopy invariance of them. As an application, we show that there exist infinitely many slice spatial embeddings of a planar graph up to delta edge-homotopy, and there exist infinitely many bounda…

The study finds disks for certain constant mean curvature surfaces in a specific 3D space.

New theorem connects handle-ribbon knots to slice derivatives.

We establish a number of results about smooth and topological concordance of knots in $S^1\times S^2$. The winding number of a knot in $S^1\times S^2$ is defined to be its class in $H_1(S^1\times S^2;\mathbb{Z})\cong \mathbb{Z}$. We show that there is a unique smooth concordance class of knots with winding number one. …

We propose and analyze a structure with which to organize the difference between a knot in the 3-sphere bounding a topologically embedded 2-disk in the 4-ball and it bounding a smoothly embedded disk. The n-solvable filtration of the topological knot concordance group, due to Cochran-Orr-Teichner, may be complete in th…

We construct many examples of non-slice knots in 3-space that cannot be distinguished from slice knots by previously known invariants. Using Whitney towers in place of embedded disks, we define a geometric filtration of the 3-dimensional topological knot concordance group. The bottom part of the filtration exhibits all…

The paper bounds the genus of surfaces in four-manifolds with indefinite forms.

The linear slice of quasi-Fuchsian once-punctured torus groups is defined by fixing the complex length of some simple closed curve to be a fixed positive real number. It is known that the linear slice is a union of disks, and it always has one standard component containing Fuchsian groups. Komori and Yamashita proved t…

We investigate the properties of knots in S^3 which bound Klein bottles, such that a pushoff of the knot has zero linking number with the knot, i.e. has zero framing. This is motivated by the many results in the literature regarding slice knots of genus one, for example, the existence of homologically essential zero se…

The paper provides a new inequality for 4-manifolds and uses it to study knot sliceness and symplectic embeddings.

Study framed links in simply connected 4-manifolds, linking to exotic phenomena.

Classifies hypersurfaces with positive constant mean curvature in hyperbolic space.

We exhibit a knot $P$ in the solid torus, representing a generator of first homology, such that for any knot $K$ in the 3-sphere, the satellite knot with pattern $P$ and companion $K$ is not smoothly slice in any homology 4-ball. As a consequence, we obtain a knot in a homology 3-sphere that does not bound a piecewise-…