arXiv research

New knots found with tough, unsliceable discs.

This note characterizes monohedral tilings of regular polygons with up to three tiles.

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

We study the intrinsic structure of parametric minimal discs in metric spaces admitting a quadratic isoperimetric inequality. We associate to each minimal disc a compact, geodesic metric space whose geometric, topological, and analytic properties are controlled by the isoperimetric inequality. Its geometry can be used …

Modified proof constructs dual spheres for 4-manifolds.

We use the famous knot-theoretic consequence of Freedman's disc theorem---knots with trivial Alexander polynomial bound a locally-flat disc in the 4-ball---to prove the following generalization. The degree of the Alexander polynomial of a knot is an upper bound for twice its topological slice genus. We provide examples…

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…

In this note we prove that any monohedral tiling of the closed circular unit disc with $k \leq 3$ topological discs as tiles has a $k$-fold rotational symmetry. This result yields the first nontrivial estimate about the minimum number of tiles in a monohedral tiling of the circular disc in which not all tiles contain t…

We discuss some consequences of the existence of the holomorphic quadratic Hopf differential on a conformally immersed constant mean curvature topological disc with analytic boundary. In particular, we derive a formula for the mean curvature as a weighted average of the normal curvature of the boundary curve, and a con…

The paper classifies homotopy ribbon discs with specific groups.

We introduce a modification procedure for Engel structures that is reminiscent of the Lutz twist in 3-dimensional Contact Topology. This notion allows us to define what an Engel overtwisted disc is, and to prove a complete h-principle for overtwisted Engel structures with fixed overtwisted disc.

Study on surfaces minimizing elastic energy with boundary constraints.

Using open book foliations we show that an overtwisted disc in a planar open book can be put in a topologically nice position. As a corollary, we prove that a planar open book whose fractional Dehn twist coefficients grater than one for all the boundary components supports a tight contact structure.

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…

New spanning tree model connects knot homology, s-invariant, and exotic discs.

100 years ago exactly, in 1906, Hartogs published a celebrated extension phenomenon (birth of Several Complex Variables), whose global counterpart was stated in full generality later by Osgood (1929): holomorphic functions in a connected neighborhood V(bD) of a connected boundary bD contained in C^n (n >= 2) do extend …

The topological underpinnings are presented for a new algorithm which answers the question: `Is a given knot the unknot?' The algorithm uses the braid foliation technology of Bennequin and of Birman and Menasco. The approach is to consider the knot as a closed braid, and to use the fact that a knot is unknotted if and …

We prove that a Lefschetz fibration over the disc that, after compactification, has the same singular fibers as an extremal rational elliptic surface can be obtained by deleting a singular fiber and a section from the rational extremal elliptic surface, i.e. such a Lefschetz fibration is determined up to topological eq…

Study the topology of stable vector fields and Lyapunov functions on R^n.

Using a cell model for the little discs operad in terms of spineless cacti we give a minimal common topological operadic formalism for three a priori disparate algebraic structures: (1) a solution to Deligne's conjecture on the Hochschild complex, (2) the Hopf algebra of Connes and Kreimer, and (3) the string topology …

Applying the techniques developed in [AGG], we construct new real hyperbolic manifolds whose underlying topology is that of a disc bundle over a closed orientable surface. By the Gromov-Lawson-Thurston conjecture [GLT], such bundles $M\to S$ should satisfy the inequality $|eM/χS|\leqslant1$, where $eM$ stands for the E…

An extremal $k$-packing is a collection of $k$ mutually disjoint metric discs, embedded in a surface, whose radius is maximal for the given topology. We study compact non-orientable surfaces of genus $g\ge 3$ containing extremal $k$-packings.

We construct and analyze minimal disc stackings with bounds on their Morse index.

In previous work with Schoenfeld, we considered a string-type chain complex of curves on surfaces, with differential given by resolving crossings, and computed the homology of this complex for discs. In this paper we consider the corresponding "string homology" of annuli. We find this homology has a rich algebraic stru…

In analogy with the holomorphic case, we compare the topology of Milnor fibrations associated to a meromorphic germ f/g : the local Milnor fibrations given on Milnor tubes over punctured discs around the critical values of f/g, and the Milnor fibration on a sphere.

Area-preserving diffeomorphisms of a 2-disc can be regarded as time-1 maps of (non-autonomous) Hamiltonian flows on solid tori, periodic flow-lines of which define braid (conjugacy) classes, up to full twists. We examine the dynamics relative to such braid classes and define a braid Floer homology. This refinement of t…

Coloured Alexander polynomials form a sequence of non-semisimple quantum invariants coming from the representation theory of the quantum group $U_q(sl(2))$ at roots of unity. This sequence recovers the original Alexander polynomial as the first term. We give a topological model for this invariants, showing that they ca…

Minimal discs count as knot invariants in hyperbolic 4-space.

New geometric invariant from disc intersections captures all coloured Jones polynomials.

The topology of the domain of outer communication for 5-dimensional stationary bi-axisymmetric black holes is classified in terms of disc bundles over the 2-sphere and plumbing constructions. In particular we find an algorithmic bijective correspondence between the plumbing of disc bundles and the rod structure formali…

The smoothing theory is revised to generalize to different disc embedding spaces.

We prove that any steady solution to the real analytic Euler equations on a Riemannian 3-sphere must possess a periodic orbit bounding an embedded disc. One key ingredient is an extension of Fomenko's work on the topology of integrable Hamiltonian systems to a degenerate case involving stratified integrals. The result …

Let $F_g$ denote a closed oriented surface of genus $g$. A set of simple closed curves is called a filling of $F_g$ if its complement is a disjoint union of discs. The mapping class group $\text{Mod}(F_g)$ of genus $g$ acts on the set of fillings of $F_g$. The union of the curves in a filling forms a graph on the surfa…

In this article, we study a free boundary isometric embedding problem for abstract Riemannian two-manifolds with the topology of the disc. Under the assumption of positive Gauss curvature and geodesic curvature of the boundary being equal to one, we show that any such disc may be isometrically embedded into the Euclide…

Maximizes filling systems on surfaces with given boundary components.

Exposes two methods for constructing flat surfaces in 4D spaces.

Smoothly isotopic 3-discs in 4-sphere become identical after 5-dimensional push.

The paper proves conditions for the existence of holomorphic discs in Kähler manifolds.

Classifies ancient flows in a disc with boundary.

The paper explores the topology of polygonal meshes and their properties.

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 manuscript studies manifolds-with-boundary collapsing in the Gromov-Hausdorff topology. The main aim is an understanding of the relationship of the topology and geometry of a limiting sequence of manifolds-with-boundary to that of a limit space, which is presumed to be without geodesic terminals. The main result e…

Study knot groups from disc patterns in 3D space.

The paper explores connections between braids, links, and cobordisms using algebraic methods.

The paper explores isometric models and Busemann functions for Funk and Hilbert discs.

We construct a finite dimensional quiver algebra from the non-simply laced type $B$ Dynkin diagram, which we call the type $B$ zigzag algebra. This leads to a faithful categorical action of the type $B$ braid group $\mathcal{A}(B)$, acting on the homotopy category of its projective modules. This categorical action is a…

The Teichmueller polynomial of a fibered 3-manifold plays a useful role in the construction of mapping class having small stretch factor. We provide an algorithm that computes this polynomial of the fibered face associated to a pseudo-Anosov mapping class of a disc homeomorphism. As a byproduct, our algorithm allows us…

The rotation angle of a rolling disc is shown to be a geometric phase related to the Hopf fibration.