arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Margaret Doig.
We introduce "book links" as a generalization of braids in open book decompositions; this new class of objects includes both braids and plats as special cases. We then prove a version of Markov's theorem in this general setting by extending the theory of open book foliations.
We study the booklink, a braid-like embedding with local maxima and minima, and the bridge-braid spectrum of a link, which captures the smallest number of braid-strands in a booklink with a prescribed number of critical points. This spectrum spans the gap between the classical bridge and braid indices. We apply a foliation theory argument to provide a formula for the spectra of both split and composite links. We then generate a table for the spectra of all prime knots up to 9 crossings.
It follows implicitly from recent work in Heegaard Floer theory that lens spaces are homology cobordant exactly when they are oriented homeomorphic. We provide a new combinatorial proof using the Heegaard Floer d-invariants, which themselves may be defined combinatorially for lens spaces.
The n-string braid group of a graph X is defined as the fundamental group of the n-point configuration space of the space X. This configuration space is a finite dimensional aspherical space. A. Abrams and R. Ghrist have conjectured that this braid group is a right angled Artin group if X is planar. We prove their conjecture if X is a tree whose nodes all lie in a single interval of X.