arXiv research

New examples show certain knots can't be obtained via specific surgeries.

New examples of 3-manifolds not obtained by surgery on knots.

We prove that the mass endomorphism associated to the Dirac operator on a Riemannian manifold is non-zero for generic Riemannian metrics. The proof involves a study of the mass endomorphism under surgery, its behavior near metrics with harmonic spinors, and analytic perturbation arguments.

Paper removes singularities from compact area minimizers in positive scalar curvature manifolds.

Study extends contact cosmetic surgeries to non-trivial Legendrian knots in L-spaces.

In this paper, we study contact surgeries along Legendrian links in the standard contact 3-sphere. On one hand, we use algebraic methods to prove the vanishing of the contact Ozsváth-Szabó invariant for contact $(+1)$-surgery along certain Legendrian two-component links. The main tool is a link surgery formula for Heeg…

We determine the lens spaces that arise by integer Dehn surgery along a knot in the three-sphere. Specifically, if surgery along a knot produces a lens space, then there exists an equivalent surgery along a Berge knot with the same knot Floer homology groups. This leads to sharp information about the genus of such a kn…

Smooth flows with surgery approximate weak mean curvature flows with spherical and neck-pinch singularities.

We show that two-bridge knots and alternating fibered knots admit no purely cosmetic surgeries, i.e., no pair of distinct Dehn surgeries on such a knot produce 3-manifolds that are homeomorphic as oriented manifolds. Our argument, based on a recent result by Hanselman, uses several invariants of knots or 3-manifolds; f…

Proves irreducible SU(2) representations for 3-surgery knots.

We classify Dehn surgeries on (p,q,r) pretzel knots that result in a manifold of finite fundamental group. The only hyperbolic pretzel knots that admit non-trivial finite surgeries are (-2,3,7) and (-2,3,9). Agol and Lackenby's 6-theorem reduces the argument to knots with small indices p,q,r. We treat these using the C…

By calculating the Fermat limit of certain q-Fermat functions, we get explicit surgery formulae for the second and third Ohtsuki invariants for homology 3-spheres. The surgery formula of the second Ohtsuki invariant λ_2, combined with an argument using the general theory of finite type invariants of homology 3-spheres,…

Researchers identify graph components for unicellular collections.

We show that although closed $\widetilde{\Bbb{SL}}\times\Bbb{E}^n$-manifolds do not admit metrics of nonpositive sectional curvature, the arguments of Farrell and Jones can be extended to show that such manifolds are topologically rigid, if $n\geq2$.

We show that if a knot admits a prime, twist-reduced diagram with at least 4 twist regions and at least 6 crossings per twist region, then every non-trivial Dehn filling of that knot is hyperbolike. A similar statement holds for links. We prove this using two arguments, one geometric and one combinatorial. The combinat…

We use a counting argument and surgery theory to show that if $D$ is a sufficiently general algebraic hypersurface in $\Bbb C^n$, then any local diffeomorphism $F:X \to \Bbb C^n$ of simply connected manifolds which is a $d$-sheeted cover away from $D$ has degree $d=1$ or $d=\infty$ (however all degrees $d > 1$ are poss…

This is the third in a series of papers on the geometry and analysis of singular area minimizing hypersurfaces. We show how to derive obstruction and structure theories for scalar curvature constraints without imposing dimensional or topological restrictions on the underlying manifold. To this end, we use skin structur…

Study shows alternating knots can't have similar crossings.

We prove that the moduli space of complete Riemannian metrics of bounded geometry and uniformly positive scalar curvature on an orientable 3-manifold is path-connected. This generalizes the main result of the fourth author [Mar12] in the compact case. The proof uses Ricci flow with surgery as well as arguments involvin…

Paper examines 4-manifold structures using chord assignments.

Let M be a closed oriented three-manifold, whose prime decomposition contains no aspherical factors. We show that for any initial riemannian metric on M the solution to the Ricci flow with surgery, defined in our previous paper math.DG/0303109, becomes extinct in finite time. The proof uses a version of the minimal dis…

This paper shows how pseudo-Anosov flows represent stable Hamiltonian classes and limits the ways 3-manifolds can be obtained from knots.

We construct simply connected, minimal, symplectic 4-manifolds with exotic smooth structures and each with one Seiberg-Witten basic class up to sign, on the Noether line and between the Noether and half Noether lines by star surgeries introduced by Karakurt and Starkston, and by using complex singularities. We also con…

The purpose of this paper is to introduce Liouville hypersurfaces in contact manifolds, which generalize ribbons of Legendrian graphs and pages of supporting open books. Liouville hypersurfaces are used to define a gluing operation for contact manifolds called the Liouville connect sum. Performing this operation on a c…

Formula connects surgeries to Seiberg-Witten invariants.

Let K be a knot in the 3--sphere. An r-surgery on K is left-orderable if the resulting 3--manifold K(r) of the surgery has left-orderable fundamental group, and an r-surgery on K is called an L-space surgery if K(r) is an L-space. A conjecture of Boyer, Gordon and Watson says that non-reducing surgeries on K can be cla…

Study confirms contact cosmetic surgery for most knots, with exceptions.

Study cosmetic surgeries on knots in homology spheres using Casson-Walker invariant.

Cosmetic surgeries on pretzel knots are unique.

Study pochette surgery on 4-manifolds, focusing on 4-spheres.

New method proves cosmetic surgery conjecture for certain knots.

New Heegaard Floer homology findings block chirally cosmetic surgeries.

Round surgery diagrams represent 3-manifolds in $S^3$.

The study calculates and analyzes alternating surgeries for various knots.

The paper constructs homotopy 4-spheres using pochette surgery.

Contact round surgeries on $(\mathbb{S}^3,ξ_{st})$ help in constructing and understanding contact 3-manifolds.

This paper concerns the truly or purely cosmetic surgery conjecture. We give a survey on exceptional surgeries and cosmetic surgeries. We prove that the slope of an exceptional truly cosmetic surgery on a hyperbolic knot in $S^3$ must be $\pm 1$ and the surgery must be toroidal but not Seifert fibred. As consequence we…

Defines contact surgery distance and shows it's bounded by topological surgery distance by 5.

We show that all exceptional surgeries on hyperbolic alternating knots in the 3-sphere are integral surgeries.

A Seifert surgery is an integral surgery on a knot in S^3 producing a Seifert fiber space which may contain an exceptional fiber of index 0. The Seifert Surgery Network is a 1-dimensional complex whose vertices correspond to Seifert surgeries; its edges correspond to single twistings along "seiferters" or "annular pair…

New proof for a knot type not admitting certain surgeries.

Study finds chirally cosmetic surgeries on knots and manifolds, contradicting previous conjectures.

New surgery operation preserves monotonicity of Lagrangians.

New insights into cosmetic surgeries using Heegaard Floer homology.

New surgeries found in 3D shapes without 2-spheres.

A Seifert surgery is a pair (K, m) of a knot K in the 3-sphere and an integer m such that m-Dehn surgery on K results in a Seifert fiber space allowed to contain fibers of index zero. Twisting K along a trivial knot called a seiferter for (K, m) yields Seifert surgeries. We study Seifert surgeries obtained from those o…

The paper defines and studies contact surgery numbers for contact 3-manifolds.

We study chirally cosmetic surgeries, that is, a pair of Dehn surgeries on a knot producing homeomorphic 3-manifolds with opposite orientations. Several constraints on knots and surgery slopes to admit such surgeries are given. Our main ingredients are the original and the $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$ version of Casson invariant…