On the classification of certain planar contact structures

We focus on contact structures supported by planar open book decompositions. We study right-veering diffeomorphisms to keep track of overtwistedness property of contact structures under some monodromy changes. As an application we give infinitely many examples of overtwisted contact structures supported by open books whose pages are the four-punctured sphere, and also we prove that a certain family is Stein fillable using lantern relation.     

Legendrian Knots in Overtwisted Contact Structures on S3

We study the problem of classifying Legendrian knots in overtwisted contact structures on S ³. The question is whether topologically isotopic Legendrian knots have to be Legendrian isotopic if they have equal values of the well-known invariants rot and tb. We give positive answer in the case that there is an overtwisted disc intersecting none of the knots and we construct an example of a knot intersecting each overtwisted disc (this provides a counterexample to the conjecture of Eliashberg). Our proof needs some results on the structure of the group of contactomorphisms of S ³. We divide the subgroup Cont₊(S ³, ) of coorientation-preserving contactomorphisms for an overtwisted contact distribution into two classes.     

Weak and strong fillability of higher dimensional contact manifolds

For contact manifolds in dimension three, the notions of weak and strong symplectic fillability and tightness are all known to be inequivalent. We extend these facts to higher dimensions: in particular, we define a natural generalization of weak fillings and prove that it is indeed weaker (at least in dimension five), while also being obstructed by all known manifestations of “overtwistedness”. We also find the first examples of contact manifolds in all dimensions that are not symplectically fillable but also cannot be called overtwisted in any reasonable sense. These depend on a higher dimensional analogue of Giroux torsion, which we define via the existence in all dimensions of exact symplectic manifolds with disconnected contact boundary.     

On contactomorphism group of contact structure overtwisted at infinity on R~3

We compute all the homotopy groups of the compactly supported contactomorphism group of a contact structure on R~3 which is overtwisted at infinity.     

Contact cuts

We describe a contact analog of the symplectic cut construction [L]. As an application we show that the group of contactomorphisms for certain overtwisted contact structures on lens spaces contains countably many non-conjugate two tori. Supported by the NSF grant DMS-980305.     

On contactomorphism group of contact structure overtwisted at infinity on ℝ<Superscript>3</Superscript>

We compute all the homotopy groups of the compactly supported contactomorphism group of a contact structure on ℝ³ which is overtwisted at infinity.      

A theorem on graph embedding with a relation to hyperbolic volume

We prove that a planar cubic cyclically 4-connected graph of odd χ < 0 is the dual of a 1-vertex triangulation of a closed orientable surface. We explain how this result is related to (and applied to prove at a separate place) a theorem about hyperbolic volume of links: the maximal volume of alternating links of given χ < 0 does not depend on the number of their components.     

Generalizations of the Wada representations and virtual link groups

We extend the Wada representations of the classical braid group to the virtual and welded braid groups. Using the resulting representations, we construct the groups of virtual links and prove that they are link invariants. We give some examples of calculating the groups of torus (virtual) links.     

On the fibration of augmented link complements

We study the fibration of augmented link complements. Given the diagram of an augmented link we associate a spanning surface and a graph. We then show that this surface is a fiber for the link complement if and only if the associated graph is a tree. We further show that fibration is preserved under Dehn filling on certain components of these links. This last result is then used to prove that within a very large class of links, called locally alternating augmented links, every link is fibered.     

Instanton Floer homology and contact structures

We define an invariant of contact 3-manifolds with convex boundary using Kronheimer and Mrowka’s sutured instanton Floer homology theory. This is the first invariant of contact manifolds—with or without boundary—defined in the instanton Floer setting. We prove that our invariant vanishes for overtwisted contact structures and is nonzero for contact manifolds with boundary which embed into Stein fillable contact manifolds. Moreover, we propose a strategy by which our contact invariant might be used to relate the fundamental group of a closed contact 3-manifold to properties of its Stein fillings. Our construction is inspired by a reformulation of a similar invariant in the monopole Floer setting defined by Baldwin and Sivek (arXiv:1403.1930, 2014).     

Contact handle decompositions

We review Giroux's contact handles and contact handle attachments in dimension three and show that a bypass attachment consists of a pair of contact 1 and 2-handles. As an application we describe explicit contact handle decompositions of infinitely many pairwise non-isotopic overtwisted 3-spheres. We also give an alternative proof of the fact that every compact contact 3-manifold (closed or with convex boundary) admits a contact handle decomposition, which is a result originally due to Giroux.     

Some families of links with divergent Mahler measure

In the following note we develop a method to prove that the Mahler Measure of the Jones polynomial of a family of links diverges. We apply this to several examples from the literature. We then use the W-polynomial to find the Kauffman Bracket of some families of Montesinos links and show that their Jones polynomials too have divergent Mahler measure.     

On the residual properties of link groups

We study the residual properties of finitely generated linear groups. Using the methods under consideration, we prove the residual 2-finiteness of the groups of the Whitehead link, the Borromean links (answering a question of Cochran), and some other links. We show also that each link is a sublink of some link whose group is residually 2-finite.     

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.     

Mayberry-Murasugi's formula for links in homology 3-spheres

We prove the Mayberry-Murasugi formula for links in homology 3-spheres, which was proved before only for links in the 3-sphere. Our proof uses Franz-Reidemeister torsions.

     

Existence and classification of overtwisted contact structures in all dimensions

We establish a parametric extension h-principle for overtwisted contact structures on manifolds of all dimensions, which is the direct generalization of the 3-dimensional result from [12]. It implies, in particular, that any closed manifold admits a contact structure in any given homotopy class of almost contact structures.     

Knots and the Bracket Calculus

In this paper, we introduce a way of encoding links (long links). This ways leads to a combinatorial representation of links by words in a given finite alphabet. We prove that the link semigroup is isomorphic to some algebraically defined semigroup with a simple system of relations. Thus, knot theory is represented as a bracket calculus: the link recognition problem is reduced to a recognition problem in this semigroup.     

On symplectic cobordisms

In this note we make several observations concerning symplectic cobordisms. Among other things we show that every contact 3-manifold has infinitely many concave symplectic fillings and that all overtwisted contact 3-manifolds are “symplectic cobordism equivalent”. Received: 26 March 2001 / Revised version: 1 May 2001 / Published online: 28 February 2002     

Representing links in 3-manifolds¶ by branched coverings of S3

We introduce a planar coloured-diagram representation of links in 3-manifolds given as branched coverings of the 3-sphere. We also prove an equivalence theorem based on local moves and the existence of a universal configuration for such representation. As an application we give unified proofs of two different results on existence of fibered links in 3-manifolds. Received: 7 April 1997     

Virtual singular braids and links

Virtual singular braids are generalizations of singular braids and virtual braids. We define the virtual singular braid monoid via generators and relations, and prove Alexander- and Markov-type theorems for virtual singular links. We also show that the virtual singular braid monoid has another presentation with fewer generators.