arXiv research

The paper studies traceless SU(2) representations and instanton gradings for specific knot types.

Given a 2-stranded tangle in a $\ZZ/2$ homology ball, $T\subset Y$, we investigate the character variety $R(Y,T)$ of conjugacy classes of traceless SU(2) representations of $π_1(Y\setminus T)$. In particular we completely determine the subspace of binary dihedral representations, and identify all of $R(Y,T)$ for many t…

Study character varieties of tangles to map immersed curves in the pillowcase.

Study shows how tangle moduli spaces relate to boundary surfaces.

Since its inception, Floer homology has been an important tool in low-dimensional topology. Floer theoretic invariants of $3$-manifolds tend to be either gauge theoretic or symplecto-geometric in nature, and there is a general philosophy that each gauge theoretic Floer homology should have a corresponding symplectic Fl…

We exhibit the traceless $SU(2)$ character variety of a 6-punctured 2-sphere as a 2-fold branched cover of ${\mathbb{C}}P^3$, branched over the singular Kummer surface, with the branch locus in $R(S^2,6)$ corresponding to the binary dihedral representations. This follows from an analysis of the map induced on $SU(2)$ c…

New method to compute tangle sums in character varieties.

The traceless $SU(2)$ character variety $R(S^2,\{a_i,b_i\}_{i=1}^n)$ of a $2n$-punctured 2-sphere is the symplectic reduction of a Hamiltonian $n$-torus action on the $SU(2)$ character variety of a closed surface of genus $n$. It is stratified with a finite singular stratum and a top smooth symplectic stratum of dimens…

The abstract describes a strategy to construct reduced Khovanov homology for links in lens spaces.

We define an elementary relatively $\mathbb Z/4$ graded Lagrangian-Floer chain complex for restricted immersions of compact 1-manifolds into the pillowcase, and apply it to the intersection diagram obtained by taking traceless $SU(2)$ character varieties of 2-tangle decompositions of knots. Calculations for torus knots…

For a diagram of a 2-stranded tangle in the 3-ball we define a twisted complex of compact Lagrangians in the triangulated envelope of the Fukaya category of the smooth locus of the pillowcase. We show that this twisted complex is a functorial invariant of the isotopy class of the tangle, and that it provides a factoriz…

Study shows how tangle geometry maps onto pillowcase surfaces.

We describe a scheme for constructing generating sets for Kronheimer and Mrowka's singular instanton knot homology for the case of knots in lens spaces. The scheme involves Heegaard-splitting a lens space containing a knot into two solid tori. One solid torus contains a portion of the knot consisting of an unknotted ar…

We introduce explicit holonomy perturbations of the Chern-Simons functional on a 3-ball containing a pair of unknotted arcs. These perturbations give us a concrete local method for making the moduli spaces of flat singular SO(3) connections relevant to Kronheimer and Mrowka's singular instanton knot homology non-degene…

In arXiv:1611.09927, we constructed a well-defined Lagrangian Floer invariant for any closed, oriented $3$-manifold $Y$ via the symplectic geometry of so-called traceless $\mathrm{SU}(2)$-character varieties. This invariant, $\mathrm{SI}(Y)$, which we refer to as the symplectic instanton homology of $Y$, was also shown…

This survey is an introduction to the geometry of co-Minkowksi space, the space of unoriented spacelike hyperplanes of the Minkowski space. Affine deformations of cocompact lattices of hyperbolic isometries act on it, in a way similar to the way that quasi-Fuchsian groups act on hyperbolic space. In particular, there i…

New knot homology theory from symplectic geometry.

Link groups can only have certain SU(2) representations.

Let $(M,g)$ be a noncompact complete $n$-manifold with harmonic curvature and positive Sobolev constant. Assume that $L_2$ norms of Weyl curvature and traceless Ricci curvature are finite. We prove that $(M,g)$ is Einstein if $n \ge 5$ and $L_{n/2}$ norms of Weyl curvature and traceless Ricci curvature are small enough…

Schur's lemma states that every Einstein manifold of dimension $n\geq 3$ has constant scalar curvature. Here $(M,g)$ is defined to be Einstein if its traceless Ricci tensor $$\Rico:=\Ric-\frac{R}{n}g$$ is identically zero. In this short note we ask to what extent the scalar curvature is constant if the traceless Ricci …

For the Bach-flat closed manifold with positive scalar curvature, we prove a rigidity result under a given inequality involving the Weyl curvature and the traceless Ricci curvature. Moveover, under an inequality involving $L^{\frac{n}{2}}$-norm of the Weyl curvature, the traceless Ricci curvature and the Yamabe invaria…

It was proved by H. Chen earlier that the property of the sum of any two eigenvalues of the curvature operator is positive is preserved under the ricci flow in all dimensional. By a recent result of Phong-Sturm, a similar notion of positive 2-traceless bisectional curvature positive is preserved on complex surface. We …

In spin geometry, traceless cyclic homogeneous Riemannian manifolds equipped with a homogeneous spin structure can be viewed as the simplest manifolds after Riemannian symmetric spin spaces. In this paper, we give some characterizations and properties of cyclic and traceless cyclic homogeneous Riemannian manifolds and …

New method uses Floer homology to create exotic disk pairs.

Study pinches curvature under Laplacian G_2 flow, proving Weyl tensor norm blows up.

The Ahlfors Laplacian is applied to solve geometric and relativistic problems.

New gauge preserves Einstein metrics' interactions, proving rigidity on negatively curved manifolds.

This is a revised version (minor changes and a deeper insight in the positive curvature case). We prove some Caccioppoli's inequalities for the traceless part of the second fundamental form of a complete, noncompact, finite index, constant mean curvature hypersurface of a Riemannian manifold, satisfying some curvature …

The paper proves conditions under which critical point metrics are Einstein.

It is observed that for complex surfaces, the positivity of the Ricci curvature is preserved by the Kähler-Ricci flow, under the additional assumption that the sum of the two lowest eigenvalues of the traceless curvature operator is non-negative.

The paper extends the Hopf differential concept to associative submanifolds in G2-manifolds.

We show that the surface area preserving mean curvature flow in Euclidean space exists for all time and converges exponentially to a round sphere, if initially the L^2-norm of the traceless second fundamental form is small (but the initial hypersurface is not necessarily convex).

For complete Riemannian manifolds with vanishing Bach tensor and positive constant scalar curvature, we provide a rigidity theorem characterized by some pointwise inequalities. Furthermore, we prove some rigidity results under an inequality involving $L^{\frac{n}{2}}$-norm of the Weyl curvature, the traceless Ricci cur…

We prove $ε$-closeness of hypersurfaces to a sphere in Euclidean space under the assumption that the traceless second fundamental form is $δ$-small compared to the mean curvature. We give the explicit dependence of $δ$ on $ε$ within the class of uniformly convex hypersurfaces with bounded volume.

Sharp estimate for genus of embedded surfaces in 3-sphere.

Proves existence of Yang-Mills fields for specific curvature conditions.

It was recently shown by R. Souam and E. Toubiana that the (non constantly curved) Berger spheres do not contain totally umbilic surfaces. Nevertheless in this article we show, by perturbative arguments, that all analytic metrics sufficiently close to the round metric $g_{0}$ on $\mathbb{S}^{3}$ possess \textsl{general…

The theory of differential characters is developed completely from a de Rham - Federer viewpoint. Characters are defined as equivalence classes of special currents, called sparks, which appear naturally in the theory of singular connections. There are many different spaces of currents which yield the character groups. …

Character scheme of small Seifert 3-manifolds is reduced if and only if no exceptional abelian character exists.

Quantum character varieties unify four construction methods.

We show that for any knot there exist only finitely many irreducible metabelian characters in the $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$-character variety of the knot group, and the number is given explicitly by using the determinant of the knot. Then it turns out that for any 2-bridge knot a section of the $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$-character va…

Study of orbifold Chern character using superconnections.

Character varieties get a natural Poisson structure.

The paper finds conditions for certain hypersurfaces to be totally umbilical.

In this paper, we give a quantum interpretation of the Bismut-Chern character form (the loop space lifting of the Chern character form) as well as the Chern character form associated to a complex vector bundle with connection over a smooth manifold in the framework of supersymmetric quantum field theories developed by …

We study rigidity results for the Einstein metrics as the critical points of a family of known quadratic curvature functionals involving the scalar curvature, the Ricci curvature and the Riemannian curvature tensor, characterized by some pointwise inequalities involving the Weyl curvature and the traceless Ricci curvat…

Study shows how certain knots and tori are detected by ideal points in character varieties.

Study SL(2,C) character schemes for finitely generated groups.