arXiv research

Contact connected sums do not increase support genus.

In this paper we write explicitly the open book decompositions of links of quotient surface singularities supporting the corresponding unique Milnor fillable contact structure. The page-genus of these Milnor open books are minimal among all Milnor open books supporting the same contact structure. We also investigate wh…

In this paper, the support genus of all Legendrian right handed trefoil knots and some other Legendrian knots is computed. We give examples of Legendrian knots in the three-sphere with the standard contact structure which have positive support genus with arbitrarily negative Thurston-Benniquin invariant. This answers a…

Study links in contact manifolds using open books and overtwisted disks.

In this note we define three invariants of contact structures in terms of open books supporting the contact structures. These invariants are the support genus (which is the minimal genus of a page of a supporting open book for the contact structure), the binding number (which is the minimal number of binding components…

The paper shows knots can have zero support genus in certain spaces.

The algorithm given by Akbulut-Ozbagci constructs an explicit open book decomposition on a contact three-manifold described by a contact surgery on a link in the three-sphere. In this article, we will improve this algorithm by using Giroux's contact cell decomposition process. Our algorithm is more economical on choosi…

We show that there are contact 3-manifolds of support genus one which admit infinitely many Stein fillings, but do not admit arbitrarily large ones. These Stein fillings arise from genus-1 allowable Lefschetz fibrations with distinct homology groups, all filling a fixed minimal genus open book supporting the boundary c…

In this note, we define a new invariant of a Legendrian knot in a contact manifold using an open book decomposition supporting the contact structure. We define the support genus sg(L) of a Legendrian knot L in a contact 3-manifold (M, ξ) as the minimal genus of a page of an open book of M supporting the contact structu…

Minimal crossing virtual links have minimal supporting genus.

Same genus-2 fibration structures for specific types found by different researchers.

We describe Milnor open books and Legendrian surgery diagrams for canonical contact structures of links of some rational surface singularities. We also describe an infinite family of Milnor fillable contact 3-manifolds so that the Milnor genus (resp. Milnor norm) is strictly greater than the support genus (resp. suppor…

In this note we observe that the no two of the three invariants defined for contact structures by Etnyre and Ozbagci -- that is, the support genus, binding number and support norm -- determine the third.

Flexible metrics found on a genus 2 surface.

New open books defy positive factorisation in genus one.

For an oriented virtual link, L.H. Kauffman defined the f-polynomial (Jones polynomial). The supporting genus of a virtual link diagram is the minimal genus of a surface in which the diagram can be embedded. In this paper we show that the span of the f-polynomial of an alternating virtual link L is determined by the nu…

Study on compact and finite-type support in mapping class group homology.

We construct, somewhat non-standard, Legendrian surgery diagrams for some Stein fillable contact structures on some plumbing trees of circle bundles over spheres. We then show how to put such a surgery diagram on the pages of an open book for $S^3,$ with relatively low genus. Thus we produce open books with low genus p…

We exhibit an infinite family of tight contact structures with the property that none of the supporting open books minimizes the genus and maximizes the Euler characteristic of the page simultaneously, answering a question of Baldwin and Etnyre in arXiv:0910.5021 .

A combinatorial framework classifies genus-one knots and links.

Homology of surface coverings solved for genus 3 and above.

This paper presents evidence supporting the surprising conjecture that in the topological category the slice genus of a satellite knot $P(K)$ is bounded above by the sum of the slice genera of $K$ and $P(U)$. Our main result establishes this conjecture for a variant of the topological slice genus, the $\mathbb{Z}$-slic…

A Teichmüller curve is an algebraic and isometric immersion of an algebraic curve into the moduli space of Riemann surfaces. We give the first explicit algebraic models of Teichmüller curves of positive genus. Our methods are based on the study of certain Hilbert modular forms and the use of Ahlfors's variational formu…

Shows Anosov flows with genus one sections, supporting a conjecture.

We give a maximal set of disjoint $(-1)$-sections of the well-known Lefschetz fibration constructed by Matsumoto, Cadavid and Korkmaz. In fact, we obtain several such sets for a fixed genus, which implies that the Matsumoto-Cadavid-Korkmaz Lefschetz fibration has more than one supporting minimal Lefschetz pencils. We a…

Let M be a closed orientable 3-manifold with a negatively curved Riemannian metric. Let {M_i} be a collection of finite regular covers with degree d_i. (1) If the Heegaard genus of M_i grows more slowly than the square root of d_i, then M_i has positive first Betti number for all sufficiently large i. (2) The strong He…

In this paper, we study the Khovanov homology of an alternating virtual link $L$ and show that it is supported on $g+2$ diagonal lines, where $g$ equals the virtual genus of $L$. Specifically, we show that $Kh^{i,j}(L)$ is supported on the lines $j=2i-σ_ξ+2k-1$ for $0\leq k\leq g+1$ where $σ_{ξ^*}(L)+2g= σ_ξ(L)$ are th…

In this paper we show how to bypass the usual difficulties in the analysis of elliptic integrals that arise when solving period problems for minimal surfaces. The method consists of replacing period problems with ordinary Sturm-Liouville problems involving the support function. We give a practical application by provin…

Continuous epimorphisms between certain mapping class groups are induced by homeomorphisms.

Given a Lie algebroid we discuss the existence of a smooth abelian integration of its abelianization. We show that the obstructions are related to the extended monodromy groups introduced recently in \cite{CFMb}. We also show that this groupoid can be obtained by a path-space construction, similar to the Weinstein grou…

If (S,h) is an open book with disconnected binding then we can form a new open book (S',h') by capping off one of the boundary components of S with a disk. We define a U-equivariant map on Heegaard Floer homology which sends c^+(S',h') to c^+(S,h), and we discuss various applications. In particular, we determine the su…

We calculate the twisted Alexander polynomials of $(-2,3,2n+1)$-pretzel knots associated to their holonomy representations. As a corollary, we obtain new supporting evidences of Dunfield, Friedl and Jackson's conjecture, that is, the twisted Alexander polynomials of hyperbolic knots associated to their holonomy represe…

We relate the existence problem of harmonic maps into $S^2$ to the convex geometry of $S^2$. On one hand, this allows us to construct new examples of harmonic maps of degree 0 from compact surfaces of arbitrary genus into $S^2$. On the other hand, we produce new example of regions that do not contain closed geodesics (…

Let $(M,ξ)$ be a contact 3-manifold. We present two new algorithms, the first of which converts an open book $(Σ,Φ)$ supporting $(M,ξ)$ with connected binding into a contact surgery diagram. The second turns a contact surgery diagram for $(M,ξ)$ into a supporting open book decomposition. These constructions lead to a r…

Study shows compact mapping class groups of infinite type surfaces are never perfect.

A new complex space resolves projective structures on surfaces.

The paper studies the geometry and topology of a specific foliation on a complex surface.

For any g>1 we construct a graph G_g in S^3 whose exterior M_g supports a complete finite-volume hyperbolic structure with one toric cusp and a connected geodesic boundary of genus g. We compute the canonical decomposition and the isometry group of M_g, showing in particular that any self-homeomorphism of M_g extends t…

We prove that for closed surfaces $M$ with Riemannian metrics without conjugate points and genus $\geq 2$ the geodesic flow on the unit tangent bundle $T^1M$ has a unique measure of maximal entropy. Furthermore, this measure is fully supported on $T^1M$ and the flow is mixing with respect to this measure. We formulate …

The paper shows uncountable integral homology for specific mapping class groups.

In this article, we study the maximal length of positive Dehn twist factorizations of surface mapping classes. In connection to fundamental questions regarding the uniform topology of symplectic 4-manifolds and Stein fillings of contact 3-manifolds coming from the topology of supporting Lefschetz pencils and open books…

For k >= 1, let Torelli_g^1(k) be the k-th term in the Johnson filtration of the mapping class group of a genus g surface with one boundary component. We prove that for all k, there exists some G_k >= 0 such that Torelli_g^1(k) is generated by elements which are supported on subsurfaces whose genus is at most G_k. We a…

In the present article we determine and characterize completely the support genus, the binding number and the norm of a page of an open book under the following restrictions: M is a rational homology sphere which can be realized as the link of a surface singularity. Moreover, we restrict ourselves to the collection of …

Let $C$ be a smooth projective curve of genus $2$. Following a method by O' Grady, we construct a semismall desingularization $\tilde{\mathcal{M}}_{Dol}^G$ of the moduli space $\mathcal{M}_{Dol}^G$ of semistable $G$-Higgs bundles of degree 0 for $G=GL(2,\mathbb{C}), SL(2,\mathbb{C})$. By the decomposition theorem by Be…

The Clifford torus minimizes Willmore energy closely for small perturbations.

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…

Study shows knot grading properties in specific spaces.

A crosscap transposition is an element of the mapping class group of a nonorientable surface represented by a homeomorphism supported on a one-holed Klein bottle and swapping two crosscaps. We prove that the mapping class group of a compact nonorientable surface of genus $g\ge 7$ is generated by conjugates of one cross…