In this paper we study isotopy classes of closed connected orientable surfaces in the standard $3$-sphere. Such a surface splits the $3$-sphere into two compact connected submanifolds, and by using their Heegaard splittings, we obtain a $2$-component handlebody-link. In this paper, we first show that the equivalence class of such a 2-component handlebody-link up to attaching trivial $1$-handles can recover the original surface. Therefore, we can reduce the study of surfaces in the $3$-sphere to that of $2$-component handlebody-links up to stabilizations. Then, by using $G$-families of quandles, we construct invariants of $2$-component handlebody-links up to attaching trivial $1$-handles, which lead to invariants of surfaces in the $3$-sphere. In order to see the effectiveness of our invariants, we will also show that our invariants can distinguish certain explicit surfaces in the $3$-sphere.
We show that the perturbative ${\frak g}$ invariant of rational homology 3-spheres can be recovered from the LMO invariant for any simple Lie algebra ${\frak g}$, i.e, the LMO invariant is universal among the perturbative invariants. This universality was conjectured in [25]. Since the perturbative invariants dominate the quantum invariants of integral homology 3-spheres [13,14,15], this implies that the LMO invariant dominates the quantum invariants of integral homology 3-spheres.
We define an invariant of rational homology 3-spheres via vector fields. The construction of our invariant is a generalization of both that of the Kontsevich-Kuperberg-Thurston invariant and that of Watanabe's Morse homotopy invariant, which implies the equivalence of these two invariants.
We derive a formula for the $\barμ$-invariant of a Seifert fibered homology sphere in terms of the eta-invariant of its Dirac operator. As a consequence, we obtain a vanishing result for the index of certain Dirac operators on plumbed 4-manifolds bounding such spheres.
Ozsváth and Szabó used the knot filtration on $\widehat{CF}(S^3)$ to define the $τ$-invariant for knots in the 3-sphere. In this article, we generalize their construction and define a collection of $τ$-invariants associated to a knot $K$ in a rational homology sphere $Y$. We then show that some of these invariants provide lower bounds for the genus of a surface with boundary $K$ properly embedded in a negative definite 4-manifold with boundary $Y$..
We give some constraints on intersection forms of spin 4-manifolds bounded by Seifert rational homology 3-spheres in terms of the $\barμ$ invariant and compare them with those in terms of the $κ$ invariant. We also show that the difference between $κ$ and $-\barμ$ for a Seifert rational homology 3-sphere is at most 2, and under certain extra conditions the difference is 0.
M. Kontsevich proposed a topological construction for an invariant Z of rational homology 3-spheres using configuration space integrals. G. Kuperberg and D. Thurston proved that Z is a universal real finite type invariant for integral homology spheres in the sense of Ohtsuki, Habiro and Goussarov. We discuss the behaviour of Z under rational homology handlebodies replacements. The explicit formulae that we present generalize a sum formula obtained by the author for the Casson-Walker invariant in 1994. They allow us to identify the degree one term of Z with the Walker invariant for rational hom…
We construct an invariant $z (M) =1+a_1(A^4-1)+ a_2(A^4-1)^2+a_3(A^4-1)^3 + \cdots \in \mathbb{Q} [[A^4-1]]= \mathbb{Q} [[A+1]]$ for an integral homology $3$-sphere $M$ using a completed skein algebra and a Heegaard splitting. The invariant $z(M)\mathrm{mod} ((A+1)^{n+1}) $ is a finite type invariant of order $n$. In particular, $-a_1/6$ equals the Casson invariant. If $M$ is the Poincaré homology 3-sphere, $(z(M))_{|A^4 =q} \mod (q+1)^{14} $ is the Ohtsuki series for $M$.
M. Kontsevich proposed a topological construction for an invariant Z of rational homology 3-spheres using configuration space integrals. G. Kuperberg and D. Thurston proved that Z is a universal real finite type invariant for integral homology spheres in the sense of Ohtsuki, Habiro and Goussarov. We review the Kontsevich-Kuperberg-Thurston construction and we provide detailed and elementary proofs for the invariance of Z. This article is the preliminary part of a work that aims to prove splitting formulae for this powerful invariant of rational homology spheres. It contains the needed backgro…
We provide a calculus for the presentation of closed 3-manifolds via nullhomotopic filling Dehn spheres and we use it to define an invariant of closed 3-manifolds by applying the state-sum machinery. As a potential application of this invariant, we show how to get lower bounds for the Matveev complexity of P2-irreducible closed 3-manifolds. We also describe an easy algorithm for constructing a nullhomotopic filling Dehn sphere of each closed 3-manifold from any of its one-vertex triangulations.
We derive a simple closed formula for the SL(2,C) Casson invariant for Seifert fibered homology 3-spheres using the correspondence between SL(2,C) character varieties and moduli spaces of parabolic Higgs bundles of rank two. These results are then used to deduce the invariant for Dehn surgeries on twist knots by combining computations of the Culler-Shalen norms with the surgery formula for the SL(2,C) Casson invariant.
It is an open problem whether Kirk's $σ$ invariant is the complete obstruction to a link map $S^2\cup S^2\to S^4$ being link homotopically trivial. With the objective of constructing counterexamples, Li proposed a link homotopy invariant $ω$ that is defined on the kernel of $σ$ and also obstructs link nullhomotopy. We show that $ω$ is determined by $σ$, and is a strictly weaker invariant.
We study a theory of finite type invariants for null-homologous knots in rational homology 3-spheres with respect to null Lagrangian-preserving surgeries. It is an analogue in the setting of the rational homology of the Goussarov-Rozansky theory for knots in integral homology 3-spheres. We give a partial combinatorial description of the graded space associated with our theory and determine some cases when this description is complete. For null-homologous knots in rational homology 3-spheres with a trivial Alexander polynomial, we show that the Kricker lift of the Kontsevich integral and the Le…
For rational homology 3-spheres, there exist two universal finite-type invariants: the Le-Murakami-Ohtsuki invariant and the Kontsevich-Kuperberg-Thurston invariant. These invariants take values in the same space of "Jacobi diagrams", but it is not known whether they are equal. In 2004, Lescop proved that the KKT invariant satisfies some "splitting formulas" which relate the variations of KKT under replacement of embedded rational homology handlebodies by others in a "Lagrangian-preserving" way. We show that the LMO invariant satisfies exactly the same relations. The proof is based on the LMO …
We introduce invariants of Hurwitz equivalence classes with respect to arbitrary group $G$. The invariants are constructed from any right $G$-modules $M$ and any $G$-invariant bilinear function on $M$, and are of bilinear forms. For instance, when $G$ is the mapping class group of the closed surface, $\mathcal{M}_g$, we get an invariant of 4-dimensional Lefschetz fibrations over the 2-sphere. Moreover, the construction is applicable for the quantum representations of $\mathcal{M}_g $ derived from Chern-Simons field theory. We compute the associated invariants in some cases, and find infinitely…
We define invariants $\frak{ds}$ and $\overline{\frak{ds}}$, which are the maximal and minimal second Betti number divided by $8$ among definite spin boundings of a homology sphere. The similar invariants $g_8$ and $\overline{g_8}$ are defined by the maximal (or minimal) product sum of $E_8$-form of bounding 4-manifolds. We compute these invariants for some homology spheres. We construct $E_8$-boundings for some of Brieskorn 3-spheres $Σ(2,3,12n+5)$ by handle decomposition. As a by-product of the construction, some negative classes which consist of addition of several fiber classes plus one se…
A note on reducing spheres for the genus-4 Heegaard surface in the 3-sphere
Hanyang University（汉阳大学）；Keio University（庆应义塾大学）；International Institute for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter (WPI-SKCM 2 ), Hiroshima University（广岛大学扭结手性超材料可持续性国际研究所（WPI-SKCM2））；Jeonbuk National University（全北国立大学）
We show that the disk complex of a genus $g>1$ Heegaard surface for the 3-sphere is homotopy equivalent to a wedge of $(2g-2)$-dimensional spheres. This implies that genus $g>1$ Heegaard surfaces for the 3-sphere are topologically minimal with index $2g-1$.
In the present work, we study the decompositions of codimension-one transitions that alter the singular set the of stable maps of $S^3$ into $\mathbb{R}^3,$ the topological behaviour of the singular set and the singularities in the branch set that involves cuspidal curves and swallowtails that alter the singular set. We also analyse the effects of these decompositions on the global invariants with prescribed branch sets.
In this paper we answer the question posed by M.~Atiyah and give an explicit formula for Floer homology of Brieskorn homology spheres in terms of their branching sets over the 3--sphere. We further show how Floer homology is related to other invariants of knots and 3--manifolds, among which are the $\barμ$--invariant of W.~Neumann and L.~Siebenmann and the Jones polynomial. Essential progress is made in proving the homology cobordism invariance of our own $ν$--invariant.
Take transverse immersions f from a disjoint unin of the three 4-spheres $S^4_1$, $S^4_2$, and $S^4_3$ into $S^6$ with the following properties: (1) The restriction of $f$ to $S^4_i$ is an embedding, (2) The intersection of $f(S^4_i)$ and $f(S^4_j)$ is not empty and connected, (3)The intersection among $f(S^4_1)$, $f(S^4_2)$, and $f(S^4_3)$ is not empty. Then we obtain three surface-links $L_i=(S^4_i\cap S^4_j, S^4_i\cap S^4_k)$ in $S^4_i$, where $(i,j,k)=(1,2,3), (2,3,1), (3,1,2).$ We prove that, we have the equality $β(L_1)+β(L_2)+β(L_3)=0$, where $β(L_i)$ is the Sato-Levine invariant of $L_…
Using elliptic fibrations with specific singular fibers, we find spheres with very negative self-intersections in elliptic surfaces and in their blow-ups.
A surface in the 4-sphere is trivially embedded, if it bounds a 3-dimensional handle body in the 4-sphere. For a surface trivially embedded in the 4-sphere, a diffeomorphism over this surface is extensible if and only if this preserves the Rokhlin quadratic form of this embedded surface.
It is known that if any prime power branched cyclic cover of a knot in the 3-sphere is a homology sphere, then the knot has vanishing Casson-Gordon invariants. We construct infinitely many examples of (topologically) non-slice knots in the 3-sphere whose prime power branched cyclic covers are homology spheres. We show that these knots generate an infinite rank subgroup of F_(1.0)/F_(1.5) for which Casson-Gordon invariants vanish in Cochran-Orr-Teichner's filtration of the classical knot concordance group . As a corollary, it follows that Casson-Gordon invariants are not a complete set of obstr…
We prove that the Seiberg-Witten invariants of a rational homology sphere are determined in a very explicit fashion by the Casson-Walker invariant and the Reidemeister torsion
In this paper we prove that the Rohlin invariant is the unique invariant inducing a homomorphism on the Torelli group. Using this result we generalize the construction of invariants of homology $3$-spheres from families of trivial 2-cocycles on the Torelli group given by Pitsch to include invariants with values on an abelian group with $2$-torsion.
For a non-orientable closed surface standardly embedded in the 4-sphere, a diffeomorphism over this surface is extendable if and only if this diffeomorphism preserves the Guillou-Marin quadratic form of this embedded surface.
In this paper a study of $G$-minimality, i.e., minimality of four-manifolds equipped with an action of a finite group $G$, is initiated. We focus on cyclic actions on $CP^2\# \overline{CP^2}$, and our work shows that even in this simple setting, the comparison of $G$-minimality in the various categories, i.e., locally linear, smooth, and symplectic, is already delicate and interesting. For example, we show that if a symplectic $Z_n$-action on $CP^2\# \overline{CP^2}$ has an invariant locally linear topological $(-1)$-sphere, then it must admit an invariant symplectic $(-1)$-sphere, provided th…
Manolescu correction terms are numerical invariants of homology three-spheres arising from $\mathrm{Pin}(2)$-equivariant Seiberg-Witten theory that contain information about homology cobordism. We discuss several constraints on these invariants for homology spheres obtained by Dehn surgery on a knot in the three-sphere (and, more generally, in an integral homology $L$-space) in terms of the surgery coefficient, the concordance order, and the genus.
We prove that the mod Z reduction of the torsion of a rational homology 3-sphere is completely determined by three data: a certain canonical spin^c structure, the linking form and a Q/Z-valued constant c. This constant is a new topological invariant of the rational homology sphere. Experimentations with lens spaces suggest this constant may be as powerful an invariant as the torsion itself.
We give a generalization of Fukaya's Morse homotopy theoretic approach for 2-loop Chern--Simons perturbation theory to 3-valent graphs with arbitrary number of loops at least 2. We construct a sequence of invariants of integral homology 3-spheres with values in a space of 3-valent graphs (Jacobi diagrams or Feynman diagrams) by counting graphs in an integral homology 3-sphere satisfying certain condition described by a set of ordinary differential equations.
The goal of this article is to establish estimates involving the Yamabe minimal volume, mixed minimal volume and some topological invariants on compact 4-manifolds. In addition, we provide topological sphere theorems for compact submanifolds of spheres and Euclidean spaces, provided that the full norm of the second fundamental form is suitably bounded.
We show how the periodicity of a homology sphere is reflected in the Reshetikhin-Turaev-Witten invariants of the manifold. These yield a criterion for the periodicity of a homology sphere.
We compare two naturally arising notions of unknotting number for 2-spheres in the 4-sphere: namely, the minimal number of 1-handle stabilizations needed to obtain an unknotted surface, and the minimal number of Whitney moves required in a regular homotopy to the unknotted 2-sphere. We refer to these invariants as the stabilization number and the Casson-Whitney number of the sphere, respectively. Using both algebraic and geometric techniques, we show that the stabilization number is bounded above by one more than the Casson-Whitney number. We also provide explicit families of spheres for which…
We study the relationship between trivial cocycles on the Torelli group and invariants of oriented integral homology 3-spheres. We give ncecessary and sufficient conditions for a function defined on the union of the Torelli groups to be an invariant of homology spheres. We apply this study to give a new purely algebraic construction of the Casson invariant and prove in this setting its surgery properties. As a by-product we get a new 2-torsion cohomology class in the second integral cohomology of the Torelli group.
In this thesis, we give a unification of the quantum WRT invariants. Given a rational homology 3-sphere M and a link L inside, we define the unified invariants, such that the evaluation of these invariants at a root of unity equals the corresponding quantum WRT invariant. In the SU(2) case, we assume the order of the first homology group of the manifold to be odd. Therefore, for rational homology 3-spheres, our invariants dominate the whole set of SO(3) quantum WRT invariants and, for manifolds with the order of the first homology group odd, the whole set of SU(2) quantum WRT invariants. We fu…
For smooth embeddings of an integral homology 3-sphere in the 6-sphere, we define an integer invariant in terms of their Seifert surfaces. Our invariant gives a bijection between the set of smooth isotopy classes of such embeddings and the integers. It also gives rise to a complete invariant for homology bordism classes of all embeddings of homology 3-spheres in the 6-sphere. As a consequence, we show that two embeddings of an oriented integral homology 3-sphere in the 6-sphere are isotopic if and only if they are homology bordant. We also relate our invariant to the Rohlin invariant and accor…
We derive a gauge theoretic invariant of integral homology 3-spheres which counts gauge orbits of irreducible, perturbed flat SU(3) connections with sign given by spectral flow. To compensate for the dependence of this sum on perturbations, the invariant includes contributions from the reducible, perturbed flat orbits. Our formula for the correction term generalizes that given by Walker in his extension of Casson's SU(2) invariant to rational homology 3-spheres.
We will announce some results on the values of quantum sl_2 invariants of knots and integral homology spheres. Lawrence's universal sl_2 invariant of knots takes values in a fairly small subalgebra of the center of the h-adic version of the quantized enveloping algebra of sl_2. This implies an integrality result on the colored Jones polynomials of a knot. We define an invariant of integral homology spheres with values in a completion of the Laurent polynomial ring of one variable over the integers which specializes at roots of unity to the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants. The definition o…
We construct power series invariants of rational homology 3-spheres from quantum PSU(n)-invariants. The power series can be regarded as perturbative invariants corresponding to the contribution of the trivial connection in the hypothetical Witten's integral. This generalizes a result of Ohtsuki (the $n=2$ case) which led him to the definition of finite type invariants of 3-manifolds. The proof utilizes some symmetry properties of quantum invariants (of links) derived from the theory of affine Lie algebras and the theory of the Kontsevich integral.
We develop techniques for computing the integer valued SU(3) Casson invariant. Our method involves resolving the singularities in the flat moduli space using a twisting perturbation and analyzing its effect on the topology of the perturbed flat moduli space. These techniques, together with Bott-Morse theory and the splitting principle for spectral flow, are applied to calculate the invariant for all Brieskorn homology spheres.
Given a rational homology 3-sphere M with the first integral homology of rank b and a link L inside M, colored by odd numbers, we construct a unified invariant I_{M,L} belonging to a modification of the Habiro ring where b is inverted. Our unified invariant dominates the whole set of the SO(3) Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariants of the pair (M,L). If b=1 and L is empty, I_M coincides with Habiro's invariant of integral homology 3-spheres. For b>1, the unified invariant defined by the third author is determined by I_M. One of the applications are the new Ohtsuki series (perturbative expansions…
For every rational homology 3-sphere with 2-torsion only we construct a unified invariant (which takes values in a certain cyclotomic completion of a polynomial ring), such that the evaluation of this invariant at any odd root of unity provides the SO(3) Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev invariant at this root and at any even root of unity the SU(2) quantum invariant. Moreover, this unified invariant splits into a sum of the refined unified invariants dominating spin and cohomological refinements of quantum SU(2) invariants. New results on the Ohtsuki series and the integrality of quantum invariants a…
We introduce the (general) homotopy groups of spheres as link invariants for Brunnian-type links through the investigations on the intersection subgroup of the normal closures of the meridians of strongly nonsplittable links. The homotopy groups measure the difference between the intersection subgroup and symmetric commutator subgroup of the normal closures of the meridians and give the invariants of the links obtained in this way. Moreover the higher homotopy-group invariants can produce some links that could not be detected by the Milnor invariants. Furthermore all homotopy groups of spheres…
In a recent paper we defined a new filtration of the mapping class group--the "Lagrangian" filtration. We here determine the successive quotients of this filtration, up to finite index. As an application we show that, for any additive invariant of finite-type (e.g. the Casson invariant), and any level of the Lagrangian filtration, there is a homology 3-sphere which has a Heegaard decomposition whose gluing diffeomorphism lies at that level, on which this invariant is non-zero. In a final section we examine the relationship between the Johnson and Lagrangian filtrations.
To each connected component in the space of semisimple representations from the orbifold fundamental group of the base orbifold of a Seifert fibered homology 3-sphere into the Lie group U(2,1), we associate a real number called the "orbifold Toledo invariant." For each such orbifold, there exists an elliptic surface over it, called a Dolgachev surface. Using the theory of Higgs bundles on these Dolgachev surfaces, we explicitly compute all values taken on by the orbifold Toledo invariant.
