It is proved in \cite{BP} (arXiv:1108.2717) that the category of relative 3-dimensional cobordisms $\cal Cob^{2+1}$ is equivalent to the universal algebraic category $\overline{\overline{\cal H}}{}^r$ generated by a Hopf algebra object. A different algebraic category $\overline{\cal Alg}$ generated by a Hopf algebra object is defined in \cite{AS} and it conjectured to be equivalent to $\cal Cob^{2+1}$ as well. We prove that there exists a functor $\overline{\cal Alg}\to \overline{\overline{\cal H}}{}^r$, and use it to present an alternative set of axioms for $\overline{\overline{\cal H}}{}^r$.
We give a formula for the parity of the Maslov index of a triple of Lagrangian subspaces of a skew symmetric bilinear form over the real numbers. We define an index two subcategory (the even subcategory) of a 3-dimensional cobordism category. The objects of the category are surfaces are equipped with Lagrangian subspaces of their real first homology. This generalizes a result of the first author where surfaces are equipped with Lagrangian subspaces of their rational first homology.
In this paper we study the cobordism of algebraic knots associated with weighted homogeneous polynomials, and in particular Brieskorn polynomials. Under some assumptions we prove that the associated algebraic knots are cobordant if and only if the Brieskorn polynomials have the same exponents.
We consider the topological category of $h$-cobordisms between manifolds with boundary and compare its homotopy type with the standard $h$-cobordism space of a compact smooth manifold.
In this paper, we introduce a category of graded commutative rings with certain algebraic morphisms, to investigate the cobordism category of plumbed 3-manifolds. In particular, we define a non-associative distributive algebra that gives necessary conditions for an abstract morphism between the homologies of two plumbed 3-manifolds to be realized geometrically by a cobordism. Here we also consider the homology cobordism monoid, and give a necessary condition using w-invariants for the homology 3-spheres to belong to the inertia group associated to some homology 3-spheres.
For a finite group $G$, we define an equivariant cobordism category $\mathcal{C}_d^G$. Objects of the category are $(d-1)$-dimensional closed smooth $G$-manifolds and morphisms are smooth $d$-dimensional equivariant cobordisms. We identify the homotopy type of its classifying space (i.e. geometric realization of its simplicial nerve) as the fixed points of the infinite loop space of an equivariant spectrum.
We consider colored operads and their actions on categories. As a special example we construct a cobordism category with a colored operad action arising from oriented planar arc diagrams. This is used to construct an invariant of oriented tangle diagrams with values in the homotopy category attached to the cobordism category. Motivated by Bar-Natan's categorification of the Jones polynomial, it categorifies the quantum $sl_n$ quantum invariants and is adapted to the categorification of the $sl_n$ quantum invariants by Khovanov and Rozansky using matrix factorizations. We conjecture to exist th…
Let $R$ be an integral domain and $G$ be a subgroup of its group of units. We consider the category $\mathbf{\mathsf{Cob}}_G$ of 3-dimensional cobordisms between oriented surfaces with connected boundary, equipped with a representation of their fundamental group in $G$. Under some mild conditions on $R$, we construct a monoidal functor from $\mathbf{\mathsf{Cob}}_G$ to the category $\mathbf{\mathsf{pLagr}}_R$ consisting of "pointed Lagrangian relations" between skew-Hermitian $R$-modules. We call it the "Magnus functor" since it contains the Magnus representation of mapping class groups as a s…
To a Legendrian knot, one can associate an $\mathcal{A}_{\infty}$ category, the augmentation category. An exact Lagrangian cobordism between two Legendrian knots gives a functor of the augmentation categories of the two knots. We study the functor and establish a long exact sequence relating the corresponding cohomology of morphisms of the two ends. As applications, we prove that the functor between augmentation categories is injective on the level of equivalence classes of objects and find new obstructions to the existence of exact Lagrangian cobordisms in terms of linearized contact homology…
For a fixed closed manifold $P$, we construct a cobordism category of embedded manifolds with a single Baas-Sullivan singularity of type $P$. Our main theorem identifies the homotopy type of the classifying space of this cobordism category with that of the infinite loop-space of a certain spectrum related to the spectrum $\text{MT}(d)$ introduced in [arXiv:math/0605249]. We obtain an analogue of the Bockstein-Sullivan exact couple that arises between the classical bordism theories $MO$ and $MO_{P}$ on the level of cobordism categories.
Bökstedt and Madsen defined an infinite loop map from the embedded $d$-dimensional cobordism category of Galatius, Madsen, Tillmann and Weiss to the algebraic $K$-theory of $BO(d)$ in the sense of Waldhausen. The purpose of this paper is to establish two results in relation to this map. The first result is that it extends the universal parametrized $A$-theory Euler characteristic of smooth bundles with compact $d$-dimensional fibers, as defined by Dwyer, Weiss and Williams. The second result is that it actually factors through the canonical unit map $Q(BO(d)_+) \to A(BO(d))$.
We concretely construct a 2-categorically extended TQFT that extends the Reshetikhin-Turaev TQFT to cobordisms with corners. The source category will be a well chosen 2-category of decorated cobordisms with corners and the target bicategory will be the Kapranov-Voevodsky 2-vector spaces.
Let $\mathcal{A}_{g,d}$ be the (topological) cobordism category of orientable surfaces whose connected components are homeomorphic to either $S^1 \times I$ with one incoming and one outgoing boundary component or the surface $Σ_{g,d}$ of genus $g$ and $d$ boundary components that are all incoming. In this paper, we study the homotopy type of the classifying space of the cobordism categories $\mathcal{A}_{g,d}$ and the associated (ordinary) cobordism categories of their connected components $\mathbb{A}_d$. $\mathcal{A}_{0,2}$ is the cobordism category of complex annuli that was considered by Co…
There are two categorifications of the Jones polynomial: "even" discovered by M.Khovanov in 1999 and "odd" dicovered by P.Ozsvath, J.Rasmussen and Z.Szabo in 2007. The first one can be fully constructed in the category of cobordisms (strictly: in the additive closure of that category), where we can build a complex for a given tangle and show its invariance under Reidemeister moves. The even link homology is given by a monoidal functor from cobordisms into modules. However, odd link homology cannot be obtained in this way. In this paper I fill this gap. I enrich cobordisms with chronologies (pr…
We create a framework for odd Khovanov homology in the spirit of Bar-Natan's construction for the ordinary Khovanov homology. Namely, we express the cube of resolutions of a link diagram as a diagram in a certain 2-category of chronological cobordisms and show that it is 2-commutative: the composition of 2-morphisms along any 3-dimensional subcube is trivial. This allows us to create a chain complex, whose homotopy type modulo certain relations is a link invariant. Both the original and the odd Khovanov homology can be recovered from this construction by applying certain strict 2-functors. We …
This paper examines the category C^k_{d,n} whose morphisms are d-dimensional smooth manifolds that are properly embedded in the product of a k-dimensional cube with an (d+n-k)-dimensional Euclidean space. There are k directions to compose k-dimensional cubes, so C^k_{d,n} is a (strict) k-tuple category. The geometric realization of the k-dimensional multi-nerve is the classifying space BC^k_{d,n}. At the end of the paper we construct an infinite loop map to Waldhausens K-theory. ΩBC^1_{d,n}-> A(BO(d)), We believe that the map factors through Ω^\inftyΣ^\infty(BO(d)_+) and that the composite B{D…
Lagrangian cobordisms are three-dimensional compact oriented cobordisms between once-punctured surfaces, subject to some homological conditions. We extend the Le-Murakami-Ohtsuki invariant of homology three-spheres to a functor from the category of Lagrangian cobordisms to a certain category of Jacobi diagrams. We prove some properties of this functorial LMO invariant, including its universality among rational finite-type invariants of Lagrangian cobordisms. Finally, we apply the LMO functor to the study of homology cylinders from the point of view of their finite-type invariants.
This paper is devoted to the study of algebraic structures leading to link homology theories. The originally used structures of Frobenius algebra and/or TQFT are modified in two directions. First, we refine 2-dimensional cobordisms by taking into account their embedding into the three space. Secondly, we extend the underlying cobordism category to a 2-category, where the usual relations hold up to 2-isomorphisms. The corresponding abelian 2-functor is called an extended quantum field theory (EQFT). We show that the Khovanov homology, the nested Khovanov homology, extracted by Stroppel and Webs…
In this note we use Heegaard Floer homology to study smooth cobordisms of algebraic knots and complex deformations of cusp singularities of curves. The main tool will be the concordance invariant $ν^+$: we study its behaviour with respect to connected sums, providing an explicit formula in the case of L-space knots and proving subadditivity in general.
This paper is an introduction to the use of the cobordism of chain complexes with Poincaré duality in surgery theory. It is a companion to the author's paper "An introduction to algebraic surgery" math.AT/0008071 (to appear in Volume 2 of Surveys in Surgery Theory, Ann. of Maths. Studies, Princeton, 2001) which is an introduction to algebraic surgery using forms and formations.
Given a symplectic manifold M, we consider a category with objects finite ordered families of Lagrangian submanifolds of M (subject to certain additional constraints) and with morphisms Lagrangian cobordisms relating them. We construct a functor that maps this category to a variant of the derived Fukaya category of M in a way that takes into account the triangulated structure of the latter.
Nested cobordisms, Cyl-objects and Temperley-Lieb algebras
University of Pennsylvania（宾夕法尼亚大学）；Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam（阿姆斯特丹自由大学）；Providence College（普罗维登斯学院）；Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；Loyola University Chicago（芝加哥洛约拉大学）；Santa Clara University（圣克拉拉大学）
In this paper we study the topology of the cobordism category of open and closed strings. This is a 2-category in which the objects are compact one-manifolds whose boundary components are labeled by an indexing set (the set of "D-branes"), the 1-morphisms are cobordisms of manifolds with boundary, and the 2-morphisms are diffeomorphisms of the surface cobordisms. Our methods and techniques are direct generalizations of those used by U. Tillmann in her study of the category of closed strings. We input the striking theorem of Madsen and Weiss regarding the topology of the stable mapping class gr…
An algebraic system is proposed that represent surface cobordisms in thickened surfaces. Module and comodule structures over Frobenius algebras are used for representing essential curves. The proposed structure gives a unified algebraic view of states of categorified Jones polynomials in thickened surfaces and virtual knots. Constructions of such system are presented.
Using methods inspired from algebraic $K$-theory, we give a new proof of the Genauer fibration sequence, relating the cobordism categories of closed manifolds with cobordism categories of manifolds with boundaries, and of the Bökstedt-Madsen delooping of the cobordism category. Unlike the existing proofs, this approach generalizes to other cobordism-like categories of interest. Indeed we argue that the Genauer fibration sequence is an analogue, in the setting of cobordism categories, of Waldhausen's Additivity theorem in algebraic $K$-theory.
We extend the theory of relative trisections of smooth, compact, oriented $4$-manifolds with connected boundary given by Gay and Kirby to include $4$-manifolds with an arbitrary number of boundary components. Additionally, we provide sufficient conditions under which relatively trisected $4$-manifolds can be glued to one another along diffeomorphic boundary components so as to induce a trisected manifold. These two results allow us to define a category $\textrm{Tri}$ whose objects are smooth, closed, oriented $3$-manifolds equipped with open book decompositions, and morphisms are relatively tr…
Galatius, Madsen, Tillmann and Weiss have identified the homotopy type of the classifying space of the cobordism category with objects (d-1)-dimensional manifolds embedded in R^\infty. In this paper we apply the techniques of spaces of manifolds, as developed by the author and Galatius, to identify the homotopy type of the cobordism category with objects (d-1)-dimensional submanifolds of a fixed background manifold M. There is a description in terms of a space of sections of a bundle over M associated to its tangent bundle. This can be interpreted as a form of Poincare duality, relating a spac…
The circle transfer $QΣ(LX_{hS^1})_+ \to QLX_+$ has appeared in several contexts in topology. In this note we observe that this map admits a geometric re-interpretation as a morphism of cobordism categories of 0-manifolds and 1-cobordisms. Let $C_1(X)$ denote the 1-dimensional cobordism category and let $Circ(X) \subset C_1(X)$ denote the subcategory whose objects are disjoint unions of unparametrised circles in $\mathbb{R}^\infty$. Multiplication in $S^1$ induces a functor $Circ(X) \to Circ(LX)$, and the composition of this functor with the inclusion of $Circ(LX)$ into $C_1(LX)$ is homotopic …
Framed flow categories were introduced by Cohen-Jones-Segal as a way of encoding the flow data associated to a Floer functional. A framed flow category gives rise to a CW-complex with one cell for each object of the category. The idea is that the Floer invariant should take the form of the stable homotopy type of the resulting complex, recovering the Floer cohomology as its singular cohomology. Such a framed flow category was produced, for example, by Lipshitz-Sarkar from the input of a knot diagram, resulting in a stable homotopy type generalizing Khovanov cohomology. In this paper we give mo…
A TQFT is a functor from a cobordism category to the category of vector spaces, satisfying certain properties. An important property is that the vector spaces should be finite dimensional. For the WRT TQFT, the relevant 2+1-cobordism category is built from manifolds which are equipped with an extra structure such as a p_1-structure, or an extended manifold structure. We perform the universal construction of Blanchet, Habegger, Masbaum and Vogel on a cobordism category without this extra structure and show that the resulting quantization functor assigns an infinite dimensional vector space to t…
We prove that the stable moduli space of $(n-1)$-connected, $n$-parallelizable, $(2n+1)$-dimensional manifolds is homology equivalent to an infinite loopspace for $n \geq 4, n \neq 7$. The main novel ingredient is a version of the cobordism category incorporating surgery data in the form of Lagrangian subspaces.
The goal of this paper is to find a close to isomorphic presentation of 3-manifolds in terms of Hopf algebraic expressions. To this end we define and compare three different braided tensor categories that arise naturally in the study of Hopf algebras and 3-dimensional topology. The first is the category \Cob of connected surfaces with one boundary component and 3-dimensional relative cobordisms, the second is a category \Tgl of tangles with relations, and the third is a natural algebraic category \Alg freely generated by a Hopf algebra object. From previous work we know that {\Tgl} and \Cob ar…
For a given list of closed manifolds $Σ_k=(P_1,...,P_k)$, we construct a cobordism category $\mathbf{Cob}_{d}^{Σ_{k}}$ of embedded manifolds with Baas-Sullivan singularities of type $Σ_k$. Our main results identify the homotopy type of the classifying spaces $B\mathbf{Cob}_{d}^{Σ_{k}}$ of these cobordism categories with that of the infinite loop-space of a certain spectrum, $\mathsf{MT}_{Σ_{k}}(d)$. Our results generalize of the work of Galatius, Madsen, Tillmann, and Weiss from arXiv:math/0605249. It also generalizes the work of Genauer on the cobordism categories of manifolds with corners fr…
