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.
We show that any closed incompressible surface in the complement of a positive knot is algebraically non-split from the knot, positive knots cannot bound non-free incompressible Seifert surfaces and that the splitability and the primeness of positive knots and links can be seen from their positive diagrams.
We show that a knot in $S^3$ with an infinite number of distinct incompressible Seifert surfaces contains a closed incompressible surface in its complement.
The concordance genus of a knot is the least genus of any knot in its concordance class. It is bounded above by the genus of the knot, and bounded below by the slice genus, two well-studied invariants. In this paper we consider the concordance genus of 11--crossing prime knots. This analysis resolves the concordance genus of 533 of the 552 prime 11--crossing knots. The appendix to the paper gives concordance diagrams for 59 knots found to be concordant to knots of lower genus, including null-concordances for the 30 11--crossing knots known to be slice.
We give a description of all (1,2)-knots in S^3 which admit a closed meridionally incompressible surface of genus 2 in their complement. That is, we give several constructions of (1,2)-knots having a meridionally incompressible surface of genus 2, and then show that any such surface for a (1,2)-knot must come from one of the constructions. As an application, we show explicit examples of tunnel number one knots which are not (1,2)-knots.
We describe the genus two knots which admit a genus one, one bridge position. These are divided into several families, one consists of vertical bandings of two genus one $(1,1)$-knots, other consists of vertical bandings of two cross cap number two 2-bridge knots, and the last one consists of genus two tunnel number one satellite knots.
The concordance genus of a knot K is the minimum Seifert genus of all knots smoothly concordant to K. Concordance genus is bounded below by the 4-ball genus and above by the Seifert genus. We give a lower bound for the concordance genus of K coming from the knot Floer complex of K. As an application, we prove that there are topologically slice knots with 4-ball genus equal to one and arbitrarily large concordance genus.
In this paper, we study on knots and closed incompressible surfaces in the 3-sphere via Morse functions. We show that both of knots and closed incompressible surfaces can be isotoped into a "related Morse position" simultaneously. As an application, we have following results. *Smallness of Montesinos tangles with length two and Kinoshita's theta curve *Classification of closed incompressible and meridionally incompressible surfaces in 2-bridge theta-curve and handcuff graph complements and the complements of links which admit Hopf tangle decompositions.
We describe a procedure for creating infinite families of hyperbolic knots having unique minimal genus Seifert surface. A large subset of these knots have the further property that the surface cannot be the sole compact leaf of a depth one foliation of the knot exterior.
We classify all knot diagrams of genus two and three, and give applications to positive, alternating and homogeneous knots, including a classification of achiral genus 2 alternating knots, slice or achiral 2-almost positive knots, a proof of the 3- and 4-move conjectures, and the calculation of the maximal hyperbolic volume for weak genus two knots. We also study the values of the link polynomials at roots of unity, extending denseness results of Jones. Using these values, examples of knots with unsharp Morton (weak genus) inequality are found. Several results are generalized to arbitrary weak…
It is known that knot Floer homology detects the genus and Alexander polynomial of a knot. We investigate whether knot Floer homology of $K$ detects more structure of minimal genus Seifert surfaces for $K$. We define an invariant of algebraically slice, genus one knots and provide examples to show that knot Floer homology does not detect this invariant. Finally, we remark that certain metabelian $L^2$-signatures bound this invariant from below.
Given a knot in the 3-sphere, the non-orientable 4-genus or 4-dimensional crosscap number of a knot is the minimal first Betti number of non-orientable surfaces, smoothly and properly embedded in the 4-ball, with boundary the knot. In this paper, we calculate the non-orientable 4-genus of knots with crossing number 10.
Roberts proved that a family of alternating, arborescent, prime knots each have at least $2^{2n-1}$ distinct minimal genus Seifert surfaces, where $n$ is the genus of the knot in question. We give a subfamily of these knots that have exactly this many minimal genus Seifert surfaces.
Among non-alternating knots with $n\le 12$ crossings given in \cite{1} Turaev genus is not known for 191 knot. For 154 of them we show that they are almost alternating, so their Turaev genus is 1.
We exhibit an infinite family of knots with isomorphic knot Heegaard Floer homology. Each knot in this infinite family admits a nontrivial genus two mutant which shares the same total dimension in both knot Floer homology and Khovanov homology. Each knot is distinguished from its genus two mutant by both knot Floer homology and Khovanov homology as bigraded groups. Additionally, for both knot Heegaard Floer homology and Khovanov homology, the genus two mutation interchanges the groups in $δ$-gradings $k$ and $-k$.
We show that a positive braid knot has maximal topological 4-genus exactly if it has maximal signature invariant. As an application, we determine all positive braid knots with maximal topological 4-genus and compute the topological 4-genus for all positive braid knots with up to 12 crossings.
We show that for genus one knots the Alexander polynomial and the homology of the double cover branching over the knot provide obstructions to cosmetic crossings. As an application we prove the nugatory crossing conjecture for the negatively twisted, positive Whitehead doubles of all knots. We also verify the conjecture for several families of pretzel knots and all genus one knots with up to 10 crossings.
We show that the equivariant and non-equivariant non-orientable 4-genus of p-periodic knots may differ, for any choice of p>1. Similar results have previously been obtained for the smooth 4-genus and non-orientable 3-genus of a periodic knot. These stand in contrast to Edmods' acclaimed result by which the equivariant and non-equivariant Seifert genus of a periodic knot agree.
A Seifert surface F for a knot K is free if the complement of F is a handlebody (i.e., has free fundamental group). The free genus of K is the minimum genus among all free Seifert surfaces for K. In this paper we show that there exist families of hyperbolic knots with arbitrarily large volume, which each have free genus one. This implies that there are knots with free genus one but arbitrarily large canonical genus, and that there exist knots admitting incompressible free Seifert surfaces which cannot be built by applying Seifert's algorithm to a projection of the knot.
In this paper, the support genus of all Legendrian right handed trefoil knots and some other Legendrian knots is computed. We give examples of Legendrian knots in the three-sphere with the standard contact structure which have positive support genus with arbitrarily negative Thurston-Benniquin invariant. This answers a question in Onaran.
The Turaev genus of a knot is a topological measure of how far a given knot is from being alternating. Recent work by several authors has focused attention on this interesting invariant. We discuss how the Turaev genus is related to other knot invariants, including the Jones polynomial, knot homology theories, and ribbon-graph polynomial invariants.
We prove the cosmetic crossing conjecture for genus one knots with non-trivial Alexander polynomial. We also prove the conjecture for genus one knots with trivial Alexander polynomial, under some additional assumptions.
We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a simple closed curve on the boundary of a genus two handlebody to decompose the handlebody into (torus with one boundary component times [0,1]. We use this condition to decide whether a simple closed curve on a genus two Heegaard surface is a GOF-knot (genus one fibered knot) which induces the Heegaard splitting. By using this, we determine the number and the positions with respect to the Heegaard splittings of GOF-knots in the 3-manifolds with reducible genus two Heegaard splittings. This is another proof of results of Morimoto and Baker.
We show that the triple-crossing number of any knot is greater or equal to twice its (canonical) genus and we show an even stronger bound in the case of links. As an application we show that this bound is strong enough to obtain the triple-crossing numbers of all torus knots, and of many more knots and their connected sums.
We compute the smooth 4-genera of the prime knots with 12 crossings whose values, as reported on the KnotInfo website, were unknown. This completes the calculation of the smooth 4-genus for all prime knots with 12 or fewer crossings.
The concordance genus of a knot K is the minimum three-genus among all knots concordant to K. For prime knots of 10 or fewer crossings there have been three knots for which the concordance genus was unknown. Those three cases are now resolved. Two of the cases are settled using invariants of Levine's algebraic concordance group. The last case depends on the use of twisted Alexander polynomials, viewed as Casson-Gordon invariants.
The genus of knots is a one of the fundamental invariant and can be seen as a complexity of knots. In this paper, we give a lower bound of genus using Dehornoy floor, which is a measure of complexity of braids in terms of braid ordering.
We give an obstruction for genus one knots $K$, $K'$ to have the Gordian distance one by using the $0$th coefficient of the HOMFLT polynomials. As an application, we give a new constraint for genus one knot to admit a (generalized) cosmetic crossing. Combining known results, we prove the (generalized) cosmetic crossing conjecture for genus one pretzel knots.
In the closed, non-Haken, hyperbolic class of examples generated by (2p,q) Dehn fillings of Figure 8 knot space, the geometrically incompressible one-sided surfaces are identified by the filling ratio p/q and determined to be unique in all cases. When applied to one-sided Heegaard splittings, this can be used to classify all geometrically incompressible splittings in this class of closed, hyperbolic examples; no analogous classification exists for two-sided Heegaard splittings.
Morifuji computed the twisted Alexander polynomial of twist knots for nonabelian representations. In this paper we compute the twisted Alexander polynomial and the Reidemeister torsion of genus one two-bridge knots, a class of knots which includes twist knots. As an application, we give a formula for the Reidemeister torsion of the 3-manifold obtained by a Dehn surgery on a genus one two-bridge knot.
A knot K is called a 1-genus 1-bridge knot in a 3-manifold M if (M,K) has a Heegaard splitting (V_1,t_1)\cup (V_2,t_2) where V_i is a solid torus and t_i is a boundary parallel arc properly embedded in V_i. If the exterior of a knot has a genus 2 Heegaard splitting, we say that the knot has an unknotting tunnel. Naturally the exterior of a 1-genus 1-bridge knot K allows a genus 2 Heegaard splitting, i.e., K has an unknotting tunnel. But, in general, there are unknotting tunnels which are not derived form this procedure. Some of them may be levelled with the torus \partial V_1=\partial V_2, who…
We show that the difference between the Seifert genus and the topological 4-genus of a prime positive braid knot is bounded from below by an affine function of the minimal number of strands among positive braid representatives of the knot. We deduce that among prime positive braid knots, the property of having such a genus difference less than any fixed constant is characterised by finitely many forbidden surface minors.
Let M be $S^3$, $S^1\times S^2$, or a lens space L(p,q), and let k be a (1,1)-knot in M, i.e., a knot which is of 1-bridge with respect to a Heegaard torus. We show that if there is a closed meridionally incompressible surface in the complement of k, then the surface and the knot can be put in a special position, namely, the surface is the boundary of a regular neighborhood of a toroidal graph, and the knot is level with respect to that graph. As an application we show that for any such M there exist tunnel number one knots which are not (1,1)-knots.
Let $F$ be an incompressible, meridionally incompressible and not boundary-parallel surface with boundary in the complement of an algebraic tangle $(B,T)$. Then $F$ separates the strings of $T$ in $B$ and the boundary slope of $F$ is uniquely determined by $(B,T)$ and hence we can define the slope of the algebraic tangle. In addition to the Conway's tangle sum, we define a natural product of two tangles. The slopes and binary operation on algebraic tangles lead an algebraic structure which is isomorphic to the rational numbers. We introduce a new knot and link class, algebraically alternating …
We present a lower bound on the stable $4$-genus of a knot based on Casson-Gordon $τ$-signatures. We compute the lower bound for an infinite family of knots, the twist knots, and show that a twist knot is torsion in the knot concordance group if and only if it has vanishing stable $4$-genus.
Kearton observed that mutation can change the concordance class of a knot. A close examination of his example reveals that it is of 4-genus 1 and has a mutant of 4-genus 0. The first goal of this paper is to construct examples to show that for any pair of nonnegative integers m and n there is a knot of 4-genus m with a mutant of 4-genus n. A second result of this paper is a crossing change formula for the algebraic concordance class of a knot, which is then applied to prove the invariance of the algebraic concordance class under mutation. The paper concludes with an application of crossing cha…
Let $u(K)$ and $g(K)$ denote the unknotting number and the genus of a knot $K$, respectively. For a 3-braid knot $K$, we show that $u(K)\le g(K)$ holds, and that if $u(K)=g(K)$ then $K$ is either a 2-braid knot, a connected sum of two 2-braid knots, the figure-eight knot, a strongly quasipositive knot or its mirror image.
We prove that the topological locally flat slice genus of large torus knots takes up less than three quarters of the ordinary genus. As an application, we derive the best possible linear estimate of the topological slice genus for torus knots with non-maximal signature invariant.
We show the existence of infinitely many prime knots each of which having in their complements meridional essential surfaces with two boundary components and arbitrarily high genus.
We prove that if a fibered knot $K$ with genus greater than one in a three-manifold $M$ has a sufficiently complicated monodromy, then $K$ induces a minimal genus Heegaard splitting $P$ that is unique up to isotopy, and small genus Heegaard splittings of $M$ are stabilizations of $P$. We provide a complexity bound in terms of the Heegaard genus of $M$. We also provide global complexity bounds for fibered knots in the three-sphere and lens spaces.
We introduce a geometric invariant of knots in the three-sphere, called the first-order genus, that is derived from certain 2-complexes called gropes, and we show it is computable for many examples. While computing this invariant, we draw some interesting conclusions about the structure of a general Seifert surface for some knots.
The only knots that are tunnel number one and genus one are those that are already known: 2-bridge knots obtained by plumbing together two unknotted annuli and the satellite examples classified by Eudave-Munoz and by Morimoto-Sakuma. This confirms a conjecture first made by Goda and Teragaito.
We determine the structure of the circular handle decompositions of the family of free genus one knots. Namely, if k is a free genus one knot, then the handle number h(k)= 0, 1 or 2, and, if k is not fibered (that is, if h(k)>0), then k is almost fibered. For this, we develop practical techniques to construct circular handle decompositions of knots with free Seifert surfaces in the 3-sphere (and compute handle numbers of many knots), and, also, we characterize the free genus one knots with more than one Seifert surface. These results are obtained through analysis of spines of surfaces on handl…
We compare the values of the nonorientable three genus (or, crosscap number) and the nonorientable four genus of torus knots. In particular, let T(p,q) be any torus knot with p even and q odd. The difference between these two invariants on T(p,q) is at least k/2, where p = qk + a and 0 < a < q and $k\geq 0$. Hence, the difference between the two invariants on torus knots T(p,q) grows arbitrarily large for any fixed odd q, as p ranges over values of a fixed congruence class modulo q. This contrasts with the orientable setting. Seifert proved that the orientable three genus of the torus knot T(p…
In "A survey on the Turaev genus of knots," Champanerkar and Kofman propose several open questions. The first asks whether the polynomial whose coefficients count the number of quasi-trees of the all-A ribbon graph obtained from a diagram with minimal Turaev genus is an invariant of the knot. We answer negatively by showing a counterexample obtained from the two diagrams of $8_{21}$ on the KnotAtlas and KnotScape.
A knot K in a closed connected orientable 3-manifold M is called a 1-genus 1-bridge knot if (M,K) has a splitting into two pairs of a solid torus V_i (i=1,2) and a boundary parallel arc in it. The splitting induces a genus two Heegaard splitting of the exterior of K naturally, i.e., K has an unknotting tunnel. However the converse is not true in general. Then we study such general case in this paper. One of the conclusions is that the unknotting tunnel may be levelled with the torus \partial V_1=\partial V_2.
Following the classification of genus one fibered knots in lens spaces by Baker, we determine hyperbolic genus one fibered knots in lens spaces on whose all integral Dehn surgeries yield closed 3-manifolds with left-orderable fundamental groups.
We analyze all monodromies of genus one fibered knots that possess clean or once-unclean arcs, and use this to determine all manifolds containing genus one fibered knots with generalized crossing changes resulting in another genus one fibered knot, and classify all such generalized crossing changes between two genus one, fibered knots.