Closed incompressible surfaces of genus two in 3-bridge knot complements

In this paper, we characterize closed incompressible surfaces of genus two in the complements of 3-bridge knots and links. This characterization includes that of essential 2-string tangle decompositions for 3-bridge knots and links.     

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.     

Polynomial invariants and quandles of twisted links

Bourgoin defined the notion of a twisted link which corresponds to a stable equivalence class of links in oriented thickenings. It is a generalization of a virtual link. Some invariants of virtual links are extended for twisted links including the knot group and the Jones polynomial. In this paper, we generalize a multivariable polynomial invariant of a virtual link to a twisted link. We also introduce a quandle of a twisted link.     

On minimal elements for a partial order of prime knots

In this paper, applying Chebyshev polynomials we give a basic proof of the irreducibility over the complex number field of the defining polynomial of SL₂(C)-character variety of twist knots in infinitely many cases. The irreducibility, combined with a result in the paper of M. Boileau, S. Boyer, A.W. Reid and S. Wang in 2010, shows the minimality of infinitely many twist knots for a partial order on the set of prime knots defined by using surjective group homomorphisms between knot groups. In Appendix B, we also give a straightforward proof of the result of Boileau et al.     

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.     

Hyperbolic isometries versus symmetries of links

We prove that every finite group is the orientation-preserving isometry group of the complement of a hyperbolic link in the 3-sphere.     

Alexander polynomials of alternating knots of genus two III

In the previous paper, the author gave linear inequalities on the coefficients of the Alexander polynomials of alternating knots of genus two, which are best possible as linear inequalities on the coefficients of them. In this paper, we give infinitely many Alexander polynomials which satisfy the linear inequalities, but they are not realized by alternating knots.     

A personal account of the discovery of hyperbolic structures on some knot complements

I give my view of the early history of the discovery of hyperbolic structures on knot complements from my early work on representations of knot groups into matrix groups to my meeting with William Thurston in 1976.     

Crossing distances of surface-knots

A surface-knot is an embedded closed connected oriented surface in 4-space. A surface diagram is a projection of a surface-knot into 3-space with crossing information. In this paper we define a distance from a special surface diagram to a trivial diagram as the minimal number of special double cycles, where we can change the crossing information to obtain the trivial diagram. We estimate the distance using the number of 1-handles needed to obtain a trivial diagram.     

Maximal Thurston-Bennequin numbers of alternating links

We show that the upper bound of the maximal Thurston-Bennequin number for an oriented alternating link given by the Kauffman polynomial is sharp. As an application, we confirm a question of Ferrand. We also give a formula of the maximal Thurston-Bennequin number for all two-bridge links. Finally, we introduce knot concordance invariants derived from the Thurston-Bennequin number and the Maslov number of a Legendrian knot.     

Nonsmoothable group actions on elliptic surfaces

Let G be a cyclic group of order 3, 5 or 7, and X=E(n) be the relatively minimal elliptic surface with rational base. In this paper, we prove that under certain conditions on n, there exists a locally linear G-action on X which is nonsmoothable with respect to infinitely many smooth structures on X. This extends the main result of [X. Liu, N. Nakamura, Pseudofree Z/3-actions on K3 surfaces, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 135 (3) (2007) 903-910].     

Local structure of ideal shapes of knots

Relatively extremal knots are the relative minima of the ropelength functional in the C¹ topology. They are the relative maxima of the thickness (normal injectivity radius) functional on the set of curves of fixed length, and they include the ideal knots. We prove that a C1,1 relatively extremal knot in Rn either has constant maximal (generalized) curvature, or its thickness is equal to half of the double critical self distance. This local result also applies to the links. Our main approach is to show that the shortest curves with bounded curvature and C¹ boundary conditions in Rn contain CLC (circle-line-circle) curves, if they do not have constant maximal curvature.     

Colored Turaev-Viro invariants of twist knots

In the present paper we give a formula for colored Turaev-Viro invariants of twist knots using special polyhedra derived from (1,1)-decomposition of the knots.     

Configuration space integrals and Taylor towers for spaces of knots

We describe Taylor towers for spaces of knots arising from Goodwillie-Weiss calculus of the embedding functor and extend the configuration space integrals of Bott and Taubes from spaces of knots to the stages of the towers. We show that certain combinations of integrals, indexed by trivalent diagrams, yield cohomology classes of the stages of the tower, just as they do for ordinary knots.     

Classifying simple closed curve pairs in the 2-sphere and a generalization of the Schoenflies theorem

A classification theory is developed for pairs of simple closed curves (A,B) in the sphere S², assuming that A∩B has finitely many components. Such a pair of simple closed curves is called an SCC-pair, and two SCC-pairs (A,B) and (A^′,B^′) are equivalent if there is a homeomorphism from S² to itself sending A to A^′ and B to B^′. The simple cases where A and B coincide or A and B are disjoint are easily handled. The component code is defined to provide a classification of all of the other possibilities. The component code is not uniquely determined for a given SCC-pair, but it is straightforward that it is an invariant; i.e., that if (A,B) and (A^′,B^′) are equivalent and C is a component code for (A,B), then C is a component code for (A^′,B^′) as well. It is proved that the component code is a classifying invariant in the sense that if two SCC-pairs have a component code in common, then the SCC-pairs are equivalent. Furthermore code transformations on component codes are defined so that if one component code is known for a particular SCC-pair, then all other component codes for the SCC-pair can be determined via code transformations. This provides a notion of equivalence for component codes; specifically, two component codes are equivalent if there is a code transformation mapping one to the other. The main result of the paper asserts that if C and C^′ are component codes for SCC-pairs (A,B) and (A^′,B^′), respectively, then (A,B) and (A^′,B^′) are equivalent if and only if C and C^′ are equivalent. Finally, a generalization of the Schoenflies theorem to SCC-pairs is presented.     

Extending homeomorphisms from punctured surfaces to handlebodies

Let Hg be a genus g handlebody and MCG2n(Tg) be the group of the isotopy classes of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of Tg=∂Hg, fixing a given set of 2n points. In this paper we find a finite set of generators for , the subgroup of MCG2n(Tg) consisting of the isotopy classes of homeomorphisms of Tg admitting an extension to the handlebody and keeping fixed the union of n disjoint properly embedded trivial arcs. This result generalizes a previous one obtained by the authors for n=1. The subgroup turns out to be important for the study of knots and links in closed 3-manifolds via (g,n)-decompositions. In fact, the links represented by the isotopy classes belonging to the same left cosets of in MCG2n(Tg) are equivalent.     

Bridge position and the representativity of spatial graphs

In this paper, we consider closed surfaces which contain spatial graphs. In the case that a closed surface is a 2-sphere, we show that the 2-sphere can be isotoped so that it intersects a bridge sphere for the spatial graph in a single loop. In the case that a closed surface is not a 2-sphere, we define an invariant of a spatial graph by counting the number of intersection of a compressing disk for the closed surface and the spatial graph. By using this invariant, we give a lower bound for the bridge number of a spatial graph.