arXiv research

New method to untangle knots using null-homologous twists.

We provide related Dehn surgery descriptions for rational homology spheres and a class of their regular finite cyclic covering spaces. As an application, we use the surgery descriptions to relate the Casson invariants of the covering spaces to that of the base space. Finally, we show that this places restrictions on th…

Unique surgery descriptions found for knots in 3-manifolds.

Using Kirby Calculus, we explicitly pass from Berge's R-R descriptions of ten families of knots with lens space surgeries to surgery descriptions on the minimally twisted five chain link (MT5C). Since the MT5C admits a strong involution, we also give the corresponding tangle descriptions.

By obtaining surgery descriptions of knots which lie on the genus one fiber of the trefoil or figure eight knot, we show that these include hyperbolic knots with arbitrarily large volume. These knots admit lens space surgeries and form two families of Berge knots. By way of tangle descriptions we also obtain surgery de…

Study contact structures on specific manifolds, proving infinite non-isotopic structures and tight/overtwisted classifications.

New description of $(1,1)$ L-space knots leads to non-left-orderable surgeries.

The twisted face-pairing construction of our earlier papers gives an efficient way of generating, mechanically and with little effort, myriads of relatively simple face-pairing descriptions of interesting closed 3-manifolds. The corresponding description in terms of surgery, or Dehn-filling, reveals the twist construct…

We use Heegaard Floer homology to obtain bounds on unknotting numbers. This is a generalisation of Ozsvath and Szabo's obstruction to unknotting number one. We determine the unknotting numbers of 9_10, 9_13, 9_35, 9_38, 10_53, 10_101 and 10_120; this completes the table of unknotting numbers for prime knots with crossi…

We discuss some consequences Fintushel-Stern `knot surgery' operation on 4-manifolds coming from its handlebody description. We give some generalizations of this operation and give a counterexample to their conjecture.

We investigate the operation of torus surgery on tori embedded in $S^4$. Key questions include which 4-manifolds can be obtained in this way, and the uniqueness of such descriptions. As an application we construct embeddings of 3-manifolds into 4-manifolds by viewing Dehn surgery as a cross section of a surgery on a su…

Complete surgery obstructions for manifolds with finite fundamental group, disproving a conjecture.

Moduli spaces of planar polygonal linkages admit a cell structure which can be realized as a surgery on the permutohedron. We present a 3D visualization of the result of the surgery for all types of non-degenerate pentagonal linkages.

In this paper, we analyze L-space surgeries on two component L-space links. We show that if one surgery coefficient is negative for the L-space surgery, then the corresponding link component is an unknot. If the link admits very negative (i.e. $d_{1}, d_{2}\ll0$) L-space surgeries, it is the Hopf link. We also give a w…

We study embedded spheres in 4-manifolds (2-knots) via doubly pointed trisection diagrams, showing that such descriptions are unique up to stabilization and handleslides, and we describe how to obtain trisection diagrams for certain cut-and-paste operations along 2-knots directly from doubly pointed trisection diagrams…

In the following series of papers we analyze the long-time behavior of 3 dimensional Ricci flows with surgery. Our main result will be that if the surgeries are performed correctly, then only finitely many surgeries occur and after some time the curvature is bounded by $C t^{-1}$. This result confirms a conjecture of P…

We give a complete description of exceptional surgeries on pretzel knots of type $(-2, p, p)$ with $p \ge 5$. It is known that such a knot admits a unique toroidal surgery yielding a toroidal manifold with a unique incompressible torus. By cutting along the torus, we obtain two connected components, one of which is a t…

By recent results of Baker--Etnyre--Van Horn-Morris, a rational open book decomposition defines a compatible contact structure. We show that the Heegaard Floer contact invariant of such a contact structure can be computed in terms of the knot Floer homology of its (rationally null-homologous) binding. We then use this …

Let $K$ be a null-homologous knot in a three-manifold $Y$. We give a description of the Heegaard Floer homology of integer surgeries on $Y$ along $K$ in terms of the filtered homotopy type of the knot invariant for $K$. As an illustration, we calculate the Heegaard Floer homology groups of non-trivial circle bundles ov…

We give combinatorial descriptions of the Heegaard Floer homology groups for arbitrary three-manifolds (with coefficients in Z/2). The descriptions are based on presenting the three-manifold as an integer surgery on a link in the three-sphere, and then using a grid diagram for the link. We also give combinatorial descr…

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

This paper has been withdrawn because its contents have become subsumed in Section 5.2 of arXiv:0805.2307.

Let $K$ be a rationally null-homologous knot in a three-manifold $Y$. We construct a version of knot Floer homology in this context, including a description of the Floer homology of a three-manifold obtained as Morse surgery on the knot $K$. As an application, we express the Heegaard Floer homology of rational surgerie…

Given an $S\cong \mathbb{R}P^2$ smoothly embedded in a 4-manifold $X^4$ with Euler number 2 or -2, the Price twist is a surgery operation on $ν(S)$ yielding (up to) three different 4-manifolds: $X^4,τ_S(X^4),Σ_S(X^4)$. This is of particular interest when $X^4=S^4$, as then $Σ_S(X^4)$ is a homotopy 4-sphere which is not…

The surgery unknotting number of a Legendrian link is defined as the minimal number of particular oriented surgeries that are required to convert the link into a Legendrian unknot. Lower bounds for the surgery unknotting number are given in terms of classical invariants of the Legendrian link. The surgery unknotting nu…

We give an algorithm for a surgery description of a $p$-fold cyclic branched cover of $B^3$ branched along a tangle. We generalize constructions of Montesinos and Akbulut-Kirby.

Bi-contact surgery operations can be applied to Anosov flows.

New method for high-dimensional submanifolds using surgery and curvature control.

Paper proves uniqueness of bridge multisections for surfaces in 4-space.

It is known that every oriented integral homology 3-sphere can be obtained from S^3 by a finite sequence of Borromean surgeries. We give an explicit formula for the variation of the Casson invariant under such a surgery move. The formula involves simple classical invariants, namely the framing, linking number and Milno…

New metrics found for 6k-dimensional manifolds with positive Ricci curvature.

We study a theory of finite type invariants for null-homologous knots in rational homology 3-spheres with respect to null Lagrangian-preserving surgeries. It is an analogue in the setting of the rational homology of the Goussarov-Rozansky theory for knots in integral homology 3-spheres. We give a partial combinatorial …

Dehn surgery homeomorphic pairs contradict a conjecture.

This is a survey article about knot Floer homology. We present three constructions of this invariant: the original one using holomorphic disks, a combinatorial description using grid diagrams, and a combinatorial description in terms of the cube of resolutions. We discuss the geometric information carried by knot Floer…

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

This is the fourth and last part of a series of papers on the long-time behavior of 3 dimensional Ricci flows with surgery. In this paper, we prove our main two results. The first result states that if the surgeries are performed correctly, then the flow becomes non-singular eventually and the curvature is bounded by $…

This paper describes a Dehn surgery approach to generating asymmetric hyperbolic manifolds with two distinct lens space fillings. Such manifolds were first identified in work of Dunfield-Hoffman-Licata as the result of a computer search of the SnapPy census, but the current work establishes a topological framework for …

In this paper we analyze the long-time behavior of 3 dimensional Ricci flows with surgery. Our main result is that if the surgeries are performed correctly, then only finitely many surgeries occur and after some time the curvature is bounded by $C t^{-1}$. This result confirms a conjecture of Perelman. In the course of…

New surgery method for foliated spheres preserves key numbers.

We give an explicit formula to compute the rotation number of a nullhomologous Legendrian knot in contact (1/n)-surgery diagrams along Legendrian links and obtain a corresponding result for the self-linking number of transverse knots. Moreover, we extend the formula by Ding-Geiges-Stipsicz for computing the d3-invarian…

This paper constructs Seifert-fibered Dehn surgeries for hyperbolic tunnel-number-one knots.

The article explores the mapping class group using unicellular maps and provides filtrations.

Extends string-net theory to 3D TQFT via surface graphs and surgery.

We prove a uniform Sobolev inequality for Ricci flow, which is independent of the number of surgeries. As an application, under less assumptions, a non-collapsing result stronger than Perelman's $κ$ non-collapsing with surgery is derived. The proof is shorter and seems more accessible. The result also improves some ear…

Classifies surgeries on torus knots and cables that bound rational homology balls.

The pair (K,r) consisting of a knot K and a surjective map r from the knot group onto a dihedral group is said to be a p-colored knot. D. Moskovich conjectured that for any odd prime p there are exactly p equivalence classes of p-colored knots up to surgery along unknots in the kernel of the coloring. We show that ther…

The construction of knots via annular twisting has been used to create families of knots yielding the same manifold via Dehn surgery. Prior examples have all involved Dehn surgery where the surgery slope is an integral multiple of 2. In this note we prove that for any integer $n$ there exist infinitely many different k…

Adds examples to Goeritz groups for a specific type of 3-manifold splitting.