The Thurston norm, fibered manifolds and twisted Alexander polynomials

Every element in the first cohomology group of a 3-manifold is dual to embedded surfaces. The Thurston norm measures the minimal ‘complexity’ of such surfaces. For instance the Thurston norm of a knot complement determines the genus of the knot in the 3-sphere. We show that the degrees of twisted Alexander polynomials give lower bounds on the Thurston norm, generalizing work of McMullen and Turaev. Our bounds attain their most concise form when interpreted as the degrees of the Reidemeister torsion of a certain twisted chain complex. We show that these lower bounds give the correct genus bounds for all knots with 12 crossings or less, including the Conway knot and the Kinoshita-Terasaka knot which have trivial Alexander polynomial.We also give obstructions to fibering 3-manifolds using twisted Alexander polynomials and detect all knots with 12 crossings or less that are not fibered. For some of these it was unknown whether or not they are fibered. Our work in particular extends the fibering obstructions of Cha to the case of closed manifolds.     

Differences of Alexander polynomials for knots caused by a single crossing change

Kondo and Sakai independently gave a characterization of Alexander polynomials for knots which are transformed into the trivial knot by a single crossing change. The first author gave a characterization of Alexander polynomials for knots which are transformed into the trefoil knot (and into the figure-eight knot) by a single crossing change. In this note, we will give a characterization of Alexander polynomials for knots which are transformed into the 10₁₃₂ knot (and into the (5,2)-torus knot) by a single crossing change. Moreover, this method can be applied for knots with monic Alexander polynomials.     

On the Alexander polynomials of knots with Gordian distance one

We consider a condition on a pair of the Alexander polynomials of knots which are realizable by a pair of knots with Gordian distance one. We show that there are infinitely many mutually disjoint infinite subsets in the set of the Alexander polynomials of knots such that every pair of distinct elements in each subset is not realizable by any pair of knots with Gordian distance one. As one of the subsets, we have an infinite set containing the Alexander polynomials of the trefoil knot and the figure eight knot. We also show that every pair of distinct Alexander polynomials such that one is the Alexander polynomial of a slice knot is realizable by a pair of knots of Gordian distance one, so that every pair of distinct elements in the infinite subset consisting of the Alexander polynomials of slice knots is realizable by a pair of knots with Gordian distance one. These results solve problems given by Y. Nakanishi and by I. Jong.     

Intersection homology of stratified fibrations and neighborhoods

We derive spectral sequences for the intersection homology of stratified fibrations and approximate tubular neighborhoods in manifold stratified spaces. These neighborhoods include regular neighborhoods in PL stratified spaces.     

Cobordism of disk knots

We study cobordisms and cobordisms rel boundary of PL locally-flat disk knots D ⁿ⁻² ↪ D ⁿ . Any two disk knots are cobordant if the cobordisms are not required to fix the boundary sphere knots, and any two even-dimensional disk knots with isotopic boundary knots are cobordant rel boundary. However, the cobordism rel boundary theory of odd-dimensional disk knots is more subtle. Generalizing results of J. Levine on the cobordism of sphere knots, we define disk knot Seifert matrices and show that two higher-dimensional disk knots with isotopic boundaries are cobordant rel boundary if and only if their disk knot Seifert matrices are algebraically cobordant. We also ask which algebraic cobordism classes can be realized given a fixed boundary knot and provide a complete classification when the boundary knot has no 2-torsion in its middle-dimensional Alexander module. In the course of this classification, we establish a close connection between the Blanchfield pairing of a disk knot and the Farber-Levine torsion pairing of its boundary knot (in fact, for disk knots satisfying certain connectivity assumptions, the disk knot Blanchfield pairing will determine the boundary Farber-Levine pairing). In addition, we study the dependence of disk knot Seifert matrices on choices of Seifert surface, demonstrating that all such Seifert matrices are rationally S-equivalent, but not necessarily integrally S-equivalent.     

Topological invariance of intersection homology without sheaves

In (1) Goresky and MacPherson defined intersection homology groups for triangulable pseudomanifolds and showed they were PL invariants. Then in [2] they generalized these groups to any pseudomanifold and showed they were topological invariants. These groups have generated a great deal of interest. However, [2] is difficult for many mathematicians (including this author) because it requires a familiarity with a great deal of hefty sheaf-theoretic machinery. This is too bad, because the basic ideas behind intersection homology (elucidated in [1]) are very geometric.In this paper we give a sheafless definition of intersection homology groups for an arbitrary stratified set and we give an elementary sheafless proof that they are topological invariants, i.e. independent of the stratification.In doing so, we find some new perversities whose intersection homology groups are topological invariants. Unfortunately, these new perverse intersection homology classes do not seem to intersect with anything (which is probably why they were ignored by Goresky and MacPherson). But in any case these groups are invariants of singular spaces which might be of some interest.     

New perspectives on self-linking

We initiate the study of classical knots through the homotopy class of the nth evaluation map of the knot, which is the induced map on the compactified n-point configuration space. Sending a knot to its nth evaluation map realizes the space of knots as a subspace of what we call the nth mapping space model for knots. We compute the homotopy types of the first three mapping space models, showing that the third model gives rise to an integer-valued invariant. We realize this invariant in two ways, in terms of collinearities of three or four points on the knot, and give some explicit computations. We show this invariant coincides with the second coefficient of the Conway polynomial, thus giving a new geometric definition of the simplest finite-type invariant. Finally, using this geometric definition, we give some new applications of this invariant relating to quadrisecants in the knot and to complexity of polygonal and polynomial realizations of a knot.     

The LMO-invariant of 3-manifolds of rank one and the Alexander polynomial

We prove that the LMO-invariant of a 3-manifold of rank one is determined by the Alexander polynomial of the manifold, and conversely, that the Alexander polynomial is determined by the LMO-invariant. Furthermore, we show that the Alexander polynomial of a null-homologous knot in a rational homology 3-sphere can be obtained by composing the weight system of the Alexander polynomial with the ?rhus invariant of knots. Received February 14, 2000 / Published online October 11, 2000     

Reidemeister torsion and lens surgeries on knots in homology 3-spheres II

We introduce the norm and the order of a polynomial and of a homology lens space. We calculate the norm of the cyclotomic polynomials, and apply it to lens surgery problem for a knot whose Alexander polynomial is the same as an iterated torus knot.     

Fibred knots and twisted Alexander invariants

We study the twisted Alexander invariants of fibred knots. We establish necessary conditions on the twisted Alexander invariants for a knot to be fibred, and develop a practical method to compute the twisted Alexander invariants from the homotopy type of a monodromy. It is illustrated that the twisted Alexander invariants carry more information on fibredness than the classical Alexander invariants, even for knots with trivial Alexander polynomials.

     

The Betti numbers of some finite racks

We show that the lower bounds for Betti numbers given in (J. Pure Appl. Algebra 157 (2001) 135) are equalities for a class of racks that includes dihedral and Alexander racks. We confirm a conjecture from the same paper by defining a splitting for the short exact sequence of quandle chain complexes. We define isomorphisms between Alexander racks of certain forms, and we also list the second and third homology groups of some dihedral and Alexander quandles.     

Embedding infinite cyclic covers of knot spaces into 3-space

We say a knot k in the 3-sphere S³ has PropertyIE if the infinite cyclic cover of the knot exterior embeds into S³. Clearly all fibred knots have Property IE.There are infinitely many non-fibred knots with Property IE and infinitely many non-fibred knots without property IE. Both kinds of examples are established here for the first time. Indeed we show that if a genus 1 non-fibred knot has Property IE, then its Alexander polynomial Δ_k(t) must be either 1 or 2t²−5t+2, and we give two infinite families of non-fibred genus 1 knots with Property IE and having Δ_k(t)=1 and 2t²−5t+2 respectively.Hence among genus 1 non-fibred knots, no alternating knot has Property IE, and there is only one knot with Property IE up to ten crossings.We also give an obstruction to embedding infinite cyclic covers of a compact 3-manifold into any compact 3-manifold.     

New obstructions to doubly slicing knots

A knot in the 3-sphere is called doubly slice if it is a slice of an unknotted 2-sphere in the 4-sphere. We give a bi-sequence of new obstructions for a knot being doubly slice. We construct it following the idea of Cochran-Orr-Teichner's filtration of the classical knot concordance group. This yields a bi-filtration of the monoid of knots (under the connected sum operation) indexed by pairs of half integers. Doubly slice knots lie in the intersection of this bi-filtration. We construct examples of knots which illustrate the non-triviality of this bi-filtration at all levels. In particular, these are new examples of algebraically doubly slice knots that are not doubly slice, and many of these knots are slice. Cheeger-Gromov's von Neumann rho invariants play a key role to show non-triviality of this bi-filtration. We also show some classical invariants are reflected at the initial levels of this bi-filtration, and obtain a bi-filtration of the double concordance group.     

Twisted Alexander polynomials of twist knots for nonabelian representations

In this paper, we describe the twisted Alexander polynomial of twist knots for nonabelian SL(2,C)-representations and investigate in detail the coefficient of the highest degree term as a function on the representation space of the knot group. In particular, we introduce the notion of monic representation and discuss its relation to the fiberedness of knots.     

On the knot complement problem for non-hyperbolic knots

This paper explicitly provides two exhaustive and infinite families of pairs (M,k), where M is a lens space and k is a non-hyperbolic knot in M, which produces a manifold homeomorphic to M, by a non-trivial Dehn surgery. Then, we observe the uniqueness of such knot in such lens space, the uniqueness of the slope, and that there is no preserving homeomorphism between the initial and the final M's. We obtain further that Seifert fibered knots, except for the axes, and satellite knots are determined by their complements in lens spaces. An easy application shows that non-hyperbolic knots are determined by their complement in atoroidal and irreducible Seifert fibered 3-manifolds.     

A version of the volume conjecture

We propose a version of the volume conjecture that would relate a certain limit of the colored Jones polynomials of a knot to the volume function defined by a representation of the fundamental group of the knot complement to the special linear group of degree two over complex numbers. We also confirm the conjecture for the figure-eight knot and torus knots. This version is different from S. Gukov's because of a choice of polarization.     

Primary decomposition and the fractal nature of knot concordance

For each sequence P=(p₁(t),p₂(t),...){\mathcal{P}=(p_1(t),p_2(t),\dots)} of polynomials we define a characteristic series of groups, called the derived series localized at P{\mathcal{P}}. These group series yield filtrations of the knot concordance group that refine the (n)-solvable filtration. We show that the quotients of successive terms of these refined filtrations have infinite rank. The new filtrations allow us to distinguish between knots whose classical Alexander polynomials are coprime and even to distinguish between knots with coprime higher-order Alexander polynomials. This provides evidence of higher-order analogues of the classical p(t)-primary decomposition of the algebraic concordance group. We use these techniques to give evidence that the set of smooth concordance classes of knots is a fractal set.     

Inequivalent surface-knots with the same knot quandle

We have a knot quandle and a fundamental class as invariants for a surface-knot. These invariants can be defined for a classical knot in a similar way, and it is known that the pair of them is a complete invariant for classical knots. In surface-knot theory the situation is different: There exist arbitrarily many inequivalent surface-knots of genus g with the same knot quandle, and there exist two inequivalent surface-knots of genus g with the same knot quandle and with the same fundamental class.     

The t-singular homology of orbifolds

For an orbifold M we define a new homology group, called t-singular homology group t-Hq(M) by using singular simplicies intersecting ‘transversely’ with ΣM. The rightness of this homology group is ensured by the facts that the 1-dimensional homology group t-H₁(M) is isomorphic to the abelianization of the orbifold fundamental group π₁(M,x₀). If M is a manifold, t-Hq(M) coincides with the usual singular homology group. We prove that it is a ‘b-homotopy’ invariant of orbifolds and develop many algebraic tools for the calculations. Consequently we calculate the t-singular homology groups of several orbifolds.     

On knot Floer homology and lens space surgeries

In an earlier paper, we used the absolute grading on Heegaard Floer homology HF⁺ to give restrictions on knots in S³ which admit lens space surgeries. The aim of the present article is to exhibit stronger restrictions on such knots, arising from knot Floer homology. One consequence is that the non-zero coefficients of the Alexander polynomial of such a knot are ±1. This information can in turn be used to prove that certain lens spaces are not obtained as integral surgeries on knots. In fact, combining our results with constructions of Berge, we classify lens spaces L(p,q) which arise as integral surgeries on knots in S³ with |p|?1500. Other applications include bounds on the four-ball genera of knots admitting lens space surgeries (which are sharp for Berge's knots), and a constraint on three-manifolds obtained as integer surgeries on alternating knots, which is closely to related to a theorem of Delman and Roberts.