The hexatangle

We are interested in knowing what type of manifolds are obtained by doing Dehn surgery on closed pure 3-braids in S³. In particular, we want to determine when we get S³ by surgery on such a link. We consider links which are small closed pure 3-braids; these are the closure of 3-braids of the form , where σ₁, σ₂ are the generators of the 3-braid group and e₁, f₁, e are integers. We study Dehn surgeries on these links, and determine exactly which ones admit an integral surgery producing the 3-sphere. This is equivalent to determining the surgeries of some type on a certain six component link L that produce S³. The link L is strongly invertible and its exterior double branch covers a certain configuration of arcs and spheres, which we call the hexatangle. Our problem is equivalent to determine which fillings of the spheres by integral tangles produce the trivial knot, which is what we explicitly solve. This hexatangle is a generalization of the pentangle, which is studied in [C.McA. Gordon, J. Luecke, Non-integral toroidal Dehn surgeries, Comm. Anal. Geom. 12 (2004) 417-485].     

On some classes of hyperbolic knots with the 3-sphere surgery

For the distance of (1,1)-splittings of a knot in a closed orientable 3-manifold, it is an important problem whether a (1,1)-knot can admit (1,1)-splittings of different distances. In this paper, we give one-parameter families of hyperbolic (1,1)-knots such that each (1,1)-knot admits a Dehn surgery yielding the 3-sphere. It is remarkable that such knots are the first concrete examples each of whose (1,1)-splittings is of distance three.     

Milnor link invariants and quantum 3-manifold invariants

Let be the 3-manifold invariant of Le, Murakami and Ohtsuki. We show that , where denotes terms of degree , if M is a homology 3-sphere obtained from by surgery on an n-component Brunnian link whose Milnor -invariants of length vanish.?We prove a realization theorem which is a partial converse to the above theorem.?Using the Milnor filtration on links, we define a new bifiltration on the vector space with basis the set of oriented diffeomorphism classes of homology 3-spheres. This includes the Milnor level 2 filtration defined by Ohtsuki. We show that the Milnor level 2 and level 3 filtrations coincide after reindexing. Received: October 23, 1998.     

An alternative proof of Lickorish–Wallace theorem

We introduce the concept of s-distance of an unstabilized Heegaard splitting. We prove if a 3-manifold admits an unstabilized genus g Heegaard splitting with s-distance m  , then surgery on some (m−1)$(m-1)$ components link may produce a 3-manifold which admits a stabilized genus g Heegaard splitting. We also give an alternative proof of the fundamental theorem of surgery theory, which states that every closed orientable 3-manifold is obtained by surgery on some link in 3-sphere.     

Positively oriented ideal triangulations on hyperbolic three-manifolds

Let M³ be a non-compact hyperbolic 3-manifold that has a triangulation by positively oriented ideal tetrahedra. We show that the gluing variety defined by the gluing consistency equations is a smooth complex manifold with dimension equal to the number of boundary components of M³. Moreover, we show that the complex lengths of any collection of non-trivial boundary curves, one from each boundary component, give a local holomorphic parameterization of the gluing variety. As an application, some estimates for the size of hyperbolic Dehn surgery space of once-punctured torus bundles are given.     

Dehn filling, reducible 3-manifolds, and Klein bottles

Let be a compact, connected, orientable, irreducible 3-manifold whose boundary is a torus. We announce that if two Dehn fillings create reducible manifold and manifold containing Klein bottle, then the maximal distance is three.

     

Boundary slopes of knots

The results in this paper show that simple connectivity of a 3-manifold is reflected in the behavior of essential surfaces in exteriors of knots in the manifold. A corollary of the main theorem is that any non-trivial knot, with irreducible complement, in a homotopy 3-sphere must have two boundary slopes that differ by at least 2. This statement is false for knots in a homology 3-sphere. The main theorem itself applies more generally to knots in closed orientable 3-manifolds with cyclic fundamental group. Received: January 20, 1998.     

Reidemeister torsion for linear representations and Seifert surgery on knots

We study an invariant of a 3-manifold which consists of Reidemeister torsion for linear representations which pass through a finite group. We show a Dehn surgery formula on this invariant and compute that of a Seifert manifold over S². As a consequence we obtain a necessary condition for a result of Dehn surgery along a knot to be Seifert fibered, which can be applied even in a case where abelian Reidemeister torsion gives no information.     

Isolated exceptional Dehn surgeries on hyperbolic knots

For a hyperbolic knot in the 3-sphere, at most finitely many Dehn surgeries yield non-hyperbolic manifolds. Such exceptional surgeries are classified into four types, lens space surgery, small Seifert fibered surgery, toroidal surgery and reducing surgery, according to the resulting manifolds. For each of the three types except reducing surgery, we give infinitely many hyperbolic knots with integral exceptional Dehn surgeries of the given type, whose adjacent integral surgeries are not exceptional.     

Twofold unbranched coverings of genus two 3-manifolds are hyperelliptic

A closed 3-dimensional manifold is hyperelliptic if it admits an involution such that the quotient space of the manifold by the action of the involution is homeomorphic to the 3-sphere. We prove that a twofold unbranched covering of a genus two 3-manifold is hyperelliptic. This result is reminiscent of a theorem, which seems to have first appeared in a paper by Enriques and which has been reproved more recently by Farkas and Accola, which states that a twofold unbranched covering of a Riemann surface of genus two is hyperelliptic.     

Vassiliev invariants and the Poincaré conjecture

This article examines the relationship between 3-manifold topology and knot invariants of finite type. We prove that in every Whitehead manifold there exist knots that cannot be distinguished by Vassiliev invariants. If, on the other hand, Vassiliev invariants distinguish knots in each homotopy sphere, then the Poincaré conjecture is true (i.e. every homotopy 3-sphere is homeomorphic to the standard 3-sphere).     

A note on Fischer-Marsden's conjecture

In this paper, we borrowed some ideas from general relativity and find a Robinson-type identity for the overdetermined system of partial differential equations in the Fischer-Marsden conjecture. We proved that if there is a nontrivial solution for such an overdetermined system on a 3-dimensional, closed manifold with positive scalar curvature, then the manifold contains a totally geodesic 2-sphere.

     

Relative symplectic caps, 4-genus and fibered knots

We prove relative versions of the symplectic capping theorem and sufficiency of Giroux’s criterion for Stein fillability and use these to study the 4-genus of knots. More precisely, suppose we have a symplectic 4-manifold X with convex boundary and a symplectic surface Σ in X such that ?Σ is a transverse knot in ?X. In this paper, we prove that there is a closed symplectic 4-manifold Y with a closed symplectic surface S such that (X,Σ) embeds into (Y,S) symplectically. As a consequence we obtain a relative version of the symplectic Thom conjecture. We also prove a relative version of the sufficiency part of Giroux’s criterion for Stein fillability, namely, we show that a fibered knot whose mondoromy is a product of positive Dehn twists bounds a symplectic surface in a Stein filling. We use this to study 4-genus of fibered knots in \(\mathbb {S}^{3} \). Further, we give a criterion for quasipositive fibered knots to be strongly quasipositive.     

An Exotic {T_{1}\mathbb{S}^4} with Positive Curvature

We construct a metric with positive sectional curvature on a 7-manifold which supports an isometry group with orbits of codimension 1. It is a connection metric on the total space of an orbifold 3-sphere bundle over an orbifold 4-sphere. By a result of S. Goette, the manifold is homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the unit tangent bundle of the 4-sphere.     

Tubular neighborhoods of totally geodesic hypersurfaces in hyperbolic manifolds

Summary We show that a closed embedded totally geodesic hypersurface in a hyperbolic manifold has a tubular neighborhood whose width only depends on the area of the hypersurface. Namely, we construct a tubular neighborhood function and show that an embedded closed totally geodesic hypersurface in a hyperbolic manifold has a tubular neighborhood whose width only depends on the area of the hypersurface (and hence not on the geometry of the ambient manifold). The implications of this result for volumes of hyperbolic manifolds is discussed. In particular, we show that ifM is a hyperbolic 3-manifold containingn rank two cusps andk disjoint totally geodesic embedded closed surfaces, then the volume ofM is bigger than . We also derive a (hyperbolic) quantitative version of the Klein-Maskit combination theorem (in all dimensions) for free products of fuchsian groups. Using this last result, we construct examples to illustrate the qualitative sharpness of our tubular neighborhood function in dimension three. As an application of our results we give an eigenvalue estimate.Oblatum IX-1992 & 18-VIII-1993Research supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-9207019     

Degree of roots of disk twists on 3-dimensional handlebodies

Margalit and Schleimer (Geom Topol 13(3):1495–1497, 2009) discovered a nontrivial root of the Dehn twist about a nonseparating curve on a closed oriented connected surface. McCullough and Rajeevsarathy (Geom Dedicata 151(1):397–409, 2011) and Monden (Rocky Mt J Math, to appear) obtained the evaluation of the degrees of roots of Dehn twists. In this paper, we discuss existence and degrees of homeomorphisms whose power is equal to disk twist about a nonseparating disk in the mapping class group of the 3-dimensional handlebody.     

Dehn surgery on knots in solid tori creating essential annuli

Let be a -manifold obtained by performing a Dehn surgery on a knot in a solid torus. In the present paper we study when contains a separating essential annulus. It is shown that does not contain such an annulus in the majority of cases. As a corollary, we prove that symmetric knots in the -sphere which are not periodic knots of period satisfy the cabling conjecture. This is an improvement of a result of Luft and Zhang. We have one more application to a problem on Dehn surgeries on knots producing a Seifert fibred manifold over the -sphere with exactly three exceptional fibres.

     

Calibrated Embeddings in the Special Lagrangian and Coassociative Cases

Every closed, oriented, real analytic Riemannian3–manifold can be isometrically embedded as a specialLagrangian submanifold of a Calabi–Yau 3–fold, even as thereal locus of an antiholomorphic, isometric involution. Every closed,oriented, real analytic Riemannian 4–manifold whose bundle of self-dual2–forms is trivial can be isometrically embedded as a coassociativesubmanifold in a G₂-manifold, even as the fixed locus of ananti-G₂ involution.These results, when coupledwith McLean's analysis of the moduli spaces of such calibratedsubmanifolds, yield a plentiful supply of examples of compact calibratedsubmanifolds with nontrivial deformation spaces.