arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Jerome Levine.
We study the natural map eta between a group of binary planar trees whose leaves are labeled by elements of a free abelian group H and a certain group D(H) derived from the free Lie algebra over H. Both of these groups arise in several different topological contexts. The map eta is known to be an isomorphism over Q, but not over Z. We determine its cokernel and attack the conjecture that it is injective.
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.
Two references added and the introduction slightly expanded. We show that the tree-level part of a recent theory of invariants of 3-manifolds (due, independently, to Goussarov and Habiro) is essentially given by classical algebraic topology in terms of the Johnson homomorphism and Massey products, for arbitrary 3-manifolds. A key role of our proof is played by the notion of a homology cylinder, viewed as an enlargement of the mapping class group, and an apparently new Lie algebra of graphs colored by the first homology of a closed surface, closely related to deformation quantization on a surface as well as to a Lie algebra that encodes the symmetries of Massey products and the Johnson homomorphism. In addition, we present a realization theorem for Massey products and the Johnson homomorphism on homology cylinders.
We show that the twisted signature invariants of boundary link concordance derived from unitary representations of the free group are actually ordinary link concordance invariants. We also show how the discontinuity locus of this signature function is determined by Seifert matrices of the link.
In a previous paper [Homology cylinders: an enlargement of the mapping class group, Algebr. Geom. Topol. 1 (2001) 243--270, arXiv:math.GT/0010247], a group H_g of homology cylinders over the oriented surface of genus g is defined. A filtration of H_g is defined, using the Goussarov-Habiro notion of finite-type. It is erroneously claimed that this filtration essentially coincides with the relative weight filtration. The present note corrects this error and studies the actual relation between the two filtrations.
We show that surgery on a connected clover (or clasper) with at least one loop preserves the concordance class of a knot. Surgery on a slightly more special class of clovers preserves invertible concordance. We also show that the converse is false. Similar results hold for clovers with at least two loops vs. S-equivalence.
We introduce a homology surgery problem in dimension 3 which has the property that the vanishing of its algebraic obstruction leads to a canonical class of π-algebraically-split links in 3-manifolds with fundamental group π. Using this class of links, we define a theory of finite type invariants of 3-manifolds in such a way that invariants of degree 0 are precisely those of conventional algebraic topology and surgery theory. When finite type invariants are reformulated in terms of clovers, we deduce upper bounds for the number of invariants in terms of π-decorated trivalent graphs. We also consider an associated notion of surgery equivalence of π-algebraically split links and prove a classification theorem using a generalization of Milnor's μ-invariants to this class of links.
We consider a homological enlargement of the mapping class group, defined by homology cylinders over a closed oriented surface (up to homology cobordism). These are important model objects in the recent Goussarov-Habiro theory of finite-type invariants of 3-manifolds. We study the structure of this group from several directions: the relative weight filtration of Dennis Johnson, the finite-type filtration of Goussarov-Habiro, and the relation to string link concordance. We also consider a new Lagrangian filtration of both the mapping class group and the group of homology cylinders.
Using basic topology and linear algebra, we define a plethora of invariants of boundary links whose values are power series with noncommuting variables. These turn out to be useful and elementary reformulations of an invariant originally defined by M. Farber.
The goal of the present paper is to find higher genus surgery formulae for the set of finite-type invariants of homology spheres, and to develop a companion theory of finite-type invariants to be applied, in a subsequent publication, to the study of subgroups of the mapping class group. The main result is to show that six filtrations on the vector space generated by oriented homology spheres (three coming from surgery on special classes of links and three coming from subgroups of the mapping class group) are equal. En route we introduce the notion of blink (a special case of a link) and of a new subgroup of the mapping class group.
In the study of the relation between the mapping class group M of a surface and the theory of finite-type invariants of homology 3-spheres, three subgroups of the mapping class group play a large role. They are the Torelli group, the Johnson subgroup K and a new subgroup L, which contains K, defined by a choice of a Lagrangian subgroup of the homology of the surface. In this work we determine the quotient L/K, in terms of the precise description of M/K given by Johnson and Morita. We also study the lower central series of L and K, using some natural imbeddings of the pure braid group in L and the theory of finite-type invariants.
We consider the problem of whether it is possible to improve the Novikov inequalities for closed 1-forms, or any other inequalities of a similar nature, if we assume, additionally, that the given 1-form is harmonic with respect to some Riemannian metric. We show that, under suitable assumptions, it is impossible. We use, in an essential way, a theorem of E.Calabi characterizing 1-forms which are harmonic with respect to some metric. We also study some interesting examples illustrating our results.
A string link S can be closed in a canonical way to produce an ordinary closed link L. We also consider a twisted closing which produces a knot K. We give a formula for the Conway polynomial of L as a product of the Conway polynomial of K times a power series whose coefficients are given as explicit functions of the Milnor invariants of S. One consequence is a formula for the first non-vanishing coefficient of the Conway polynomial of L in terms of the Milnor invariants of L. There is an analogous factorization of the multivariable Alexander polynomial.
Using the recently developed theory of finite type invariants of integral homology 3-spheres we study the structure of the Torelli group of a closed surface. Explicitly, we construct (a) natural cocycles of the Torelli group (with coefficients in a space of trivalent graphs) and cohomology classes of the abelianized Torelli group; (b) group homomorphisms that detect (rationally) the nontriviality of the lower central series of the Torelli group. Our results are motivated by the appearance of trivalent graphs in topology and in representation theory and the dual role played by the Casson invariant in the theory of finite type invariants of integral homology 3-spheres and in Morita's study of the structure of the Torelli group Our results generalize those of S. Morita {Mo1,Mo2} and complement the recent calculation, due to R. Hain, of the I-adic completion of the rational group ring of the Torelli group. We also give analogous results for two other subgroups of the mapping class group.
We apply the theory of finite-type invariants of homology 3-spheres to investigate the structure of the Torelli group. We construct natural cocycles in the Torelli group and show that the lower central series quotients of the Torelli group map onto a vector space of trivalent graphs. We also have analogous results for two other natural subgroups of the mapping class group.
This paper compares the definitions of finite-type invariants due to Ohtsuki and to Garoufalidis, showing that, residually, type 3m of the former equals type m of the latter. It also shows that type 2m Ohtsuki invariants define knot invariants of type 3m (first proved by Habegger).
This paper continues the study of finite-type invariants of homology spheres studied by Ohtsuki and Garoufalidis. We apply the surgery classification of links to give a diagrammatic description, using ideas of Ohtsuki. This uses a computation of the surgery equivalence classes of pure braids. We show that the order of any invariant, in Ohtsukis sense, is a multiple of 3. We also study the relation between the order of an invariant and that of the knot invariant it defines.