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.     

Higher-order polynomial invariants of 3-manifolds giving lower bounds for the Thurston norm

We define an infinite sequence of new invariants, δ_n, of a group G that measure the size of the successive quotients of the derived series of G. In the case that G is the fundamental group of a 3-manifold, we obtain new 3-manifold invariants. These invariants are closely related to the topology of the 3-manifold. They give lower bounds for the Thurston norm which provide better estimates than the bound established by McMullen using the Alexander norm. We also show that the δ_n give obstructions to a 3-manifold fibering over S¹ and to a 3-manifold being Seifert fibered. Moreover, we show that the δ_n give computable algebraic obstructions to a 4-manifold of the form X×S¹ admitting a symplectic structure even when the obstructions given by the Seiberg-Witten invariants fail. There are also applications to the minimal ropelength and genera of knots and links in S³.     

The parity of the Cochran-Harvey invariants of 3-manifolds

Given a finitely presented group and an epimorphism Cochran and Harvey defined a sequence of invariants , which can be viewed as the degrees of higher-order Alexander polynomials. Cochran and Harvey showed that (up to a minor modification) this is a never decreasing sequence of numbers if is the fundamental group of a 3-manifold with empty or toroidal boundary. Furthermore they showed that these invariants give lower bounds on the Thurston norm.

Using a certain Cohn localization and the duality of Reidemeister torsion we show that for a fundamental group of a 3-manifold any jump in the sequence is necessarily even. This answers in particular a question of Cochran. Furthermore using results of Turaev we show that under a mild extra hypothesis the parity of the Cochran-Harvey invariant agrees with the parity of the Thurston norm.

     

Twisted Reidemeister torsion,the Thurston norm and fibered manifolds

We prove that the twisted Reidemeister torsion of a 3-manifold corresponding to a fibered class is monic and we show that it gives lower bounds on the Thurston norm. The former fixes a flawed proof in Friedl and Vidussi (2010), the latter gives a quick alternative argument for the main theorem of Friedl and Kim (Topology 45:929–953, 2006).     

Link Floer homology and the Thurston norm

We show that link Floer homology detects the Thurston norm of a link complement. As an application, we show that the Thurston polytope of an alternating link is dual to the Newton polytope of its multi-variable Alexander polynomial. To illustrate these techniques, we also compute the Thurston polytopes of several specific link complements.

     

The Cannon–Thurston map for punctured-surface groups

Let Γ be the fundamental group of a compact surface group with non-empty boundary. We suppose that Γ admits a properly discontinuous strictly type preserving action on hyperbolic 3-space such that there is a positive lower bound on the translation lengths of loxodromic elements. We describe the Cannon–Thurston map in this case. In particular, we show that there is a continuous equivariant map of the circle to the boundary of hyperbolic 3-space, where the action on the circle is obtained by taking any finite-area complete hyperbolic structure on the surface, and lifting to the boundary of hyperbolic 2-space. We deduce that the limit set is locally connected, hence a dentrite in the singly degenerate case. Moreover, we show that the Cannon–Thurston map can be described topologically as the quotient of the circle by the equivalence relations arising from the ends of the quotient 3-manifold. For closed surface bundles over the circle, this was obtained by Cannon and Thurston. Some generalisations and variations have been obtained by Minsky, Mitra, Alperin, Dicks, Porti, McMullen and Cannon. We deduce that a finitely generated kleinian group with a positive lower bound on the translation lengths of loxodromics has a locally connected limit set assuming it is connected.     

Turaev torsion invariants of 3-orbifolds

We construct a combinatorial invariant of 3-orbifolds with singular set a link that generalizes the Turaev torsion invariant of 3-manifolds. We give several gluing formulas from which we derive two consequences. The first is an understanding of how the components of the invariant change when we remove a curve from the singular set. The second is a formula relating the invariant of the 3-orbifold to the Turaev torsion invariant of the underlying 3-manifold in the case when the singular set is a nullhomologous knot.     

Earthquake曲线切向量上的范数

本文研究了定义在earthquake曲线切向量上的范数，首先证明了一条earthquake曲线ht上初始切向量的范数等价于earthquake测度σ的Thurston范数．其次证明了当t→∞时，ht的切向量Vt的范数增长渐近等于O(||→||The^Ct||σ||Th)，其中C是正的万有常数，||σ||Th是σ的Thurston范数，而O所代表的常数是渐近万有的，也即当t||σ||Th充分大时它是万有的．此外，附带证明了定义在Zygmund有界函数上的两种交比范数是等价的．     

Closed minimal surfaces in cusped hyperbolic three-manifolds

We introduce essential open book foliations by refining open book foliations, and develop technical estimates of the fractional Dehn twist coefficient (FDTC) of monodromies and the FDTC for closed braids, which we introduce as well. As applications, we quantitatively study the ‘gap’ between overtwisted contact structures and non-right-veering monodromies. We give sufficient conditions for a 3-manifold to be irreducible and atoroidal. We also show that the geometries of a 3-manifold and the complement of a closed braid are determined by the Nielsen–Thurston types of the monodromies of their open book decompositions.     

Heegaard Floer correction terms and rational genus bounds

Given an element in the first homology of a rational homology 3-sphere Y, one can consider the minimal rational genus of all knots in this homology class. This defines a function Θ   on _H1(Y;Z)$H_1(Y;\mathbb{Z})$, which was introduced by Turaev as an analogue of Thurston norm. We will give a lower bound for this function using the correction terms in Heegaard Floer homology. As a corollary, we show that Floer simple knots in L-spaces are genus minimizers in their homology classes, hence answer questions of Turaev and Rasmussen about genus minimizers in lens spaces.     

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.

     

Thurston?s relative inequalities and Reeb components

We construct a family of codimension 1 foliations in a 3-manifold for which Thurston?s relative inequality holds, but for which the absolute one is violated. For this, we introduce a variant of these inequalities, which we call the relative^(±) inequality. Also we determine the class of foliations for which the relative^(±) inequality holds.     

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     

Tensor logarithmic norm and its applications

Matrix logarithmic norm is an important quantity, which characterize the stability of linear dynamical systems. We propose the logarithmic norms for tensors and tensor pairs, and extend some classical results from the matrix case. Moreover, the explicit forms of several tensor logarithmic norms and semi‐norms are also derived. Employing the tensor logarithmic norms, we bound the real parts of all the eigenvalues of a complex tensor and study the stability of a class of nonlinear dynamical systems. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inner derivations and norm equality

We characterize when the norm of the sum of two bounded operators on a Hilbert space is equal to the sum of their norms.

     

Dehn fillings that reduce Thurston norm

We construct examples for which more than one Dehn filling reduces the Thurston norm of (distinct) second homology classes of Φ _P -atoroidal 3-manifolds. We bound the number of these Dehn fillings by the number of faces of the Thurston Ball. This work is part of a thesis under the supervision of Eliahu Rips at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Sponsored in part by the Landau Center for Mathematical Research.     

Combinatorial conditions that imply word-hyperbolicity for 3-manifolds

Thurston conjectured that a closed triangulated 3-manifold in which every edge has degree 5 or 6, and no two edges of degree 5 lie in a common 2-cell, has word-hyperbolic fundamental group. We establish Thurston's conjecture by proving that such a manifold admits a piecewise Euclidean metric of non-positive curvature and the universal cover contains no isometrically embedded flat planes. The proof involves a mixture of computer computation and techniques from small cancellation theory.     

Representations of Knot Groups and Twisted Alexander Polynomials

We present a twisted version of the Alexander polynomial associated with a matrix representation of the knot group. Examples of two knots with the same Alexander module but different twisted Alexander polynomials are given.     

The solution of orthogonal Procrustes problems for a family of orthogonally invariant norms

The orthogonal Procrustes problem involves finding an orthogonal matrix which transforms one given matrix into another in the least-squares sense, and thus it requires the minimization of the Frobenius matrix norm. We consider, the solution of this problem for a family of orthogonally invariant norms which includes the Frobenius norm as a special case.     

Incompressible surfaces and spunnormal form

Suppose M is a cusped finite-volume hyperbolic 3-manifold and T{\mathcal{T}} is an ideal triangulation of M with essential edges. We show that any incompressible surface S in M that is not a virtual fiber can be isotoped into spunnormal form in T{\mathcal{T}}. The proof is based directly on ideas of W. Thurston.