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Mark Powell

Publications and source records attributed to Mark Powell.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
arXiv2021

The $\mathbb{Z}$-genus of boundary links

The $\mathbb{Z}$-genus of a link $L$ in $S^3$ is the minimal genus of a locally flat, embedded, connected surface in $D^4$ whose boundary is $L$ and with the fundamental group of the complement infinite cyclic. We characterise the $\mathbb{Z}$-genus of boundary links in terms of their single variable Blanchfield forms, and we present some applications. In particular, we show that a variant of the shake genus of a knot, the $\mathbb{Z}$-shake genus, equals the $\mathbb{Z}$-genus of the knot.

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arXiv2021

Simply-connected manifolds with large homotopy stable classes

For every $k \geq 2$ and $n \geq 2$ we construct $n$ pairwise homotopically inequivalent simply-connected, closed $4k$-dimensional manifolds, all of which are stably diffeomorphic to one another. Each of these manifolds has hyperbolic intersection form and is stably parallelisable. In dimension $4$, we exhibit an analogous phenomenon for spin$^{c}$ structures on $S^2 \times S^2$. For $m\geq 1$, we also provide similar $(4m{-}1)$-connected $8m$-dimensional examples, where the number of homotopy types in a stable diffeomorphism class is related to the order of the image of the stable $J$-homomorphism $π_{4m-1}(SO) \to π^s_{4m-1}$.

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arXiv2021

Four-manifolds up to connected sum with complex projective planes

We show that closed, connected 4-manifolds up to connected sum with copies of the complex projective plane are classified in terms of the fundamental group, the orientation character and an extension class involving the second homotopy group. For fundamental groups that are torsion free or have one end, we reduce this further to a classification in terms of the homotopy 2-type.

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arXiv2021

Homotopy ribbon concordance, Blanchfield pairings, and twisted Alexander polynomials

We establish homotopy ribbon concordance obstructions coming from the Blanchfield form and Levine-Tristram signatures. Then, as an application of twisted Alexander polynomials, we show that for every knot K with nontrivial Alexander polynomial, there exists an infinite family of knots that are all concordant to K and have the same Blanchfield form as K, such that no pair of knots in that family is homotopy ribbon concordant.

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arXiv2020

A lower bound for the doubly slice genus from signatures

The doubly slice genus of a knot in the 3-sphere is the minimal genus among unknotted orientable surfaces in the 4-sphere for which the knot arises as a cross-section. We use the classical signature function of the knot to give a new lower bound for the doubly slice genus. We combine this with an upper bound due to C. McDonald to prove that for every nonnegative integer $N$ there is a knot where the difference between the slice and doubly slice genus is exactly $N$, refining a result of W. Chen which says this difference can be arbitrarily large.

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arXiv2020

Stabilization distance between surfaces

Define the 1-handle stabilization distance between two surfaces properly embedded in a fixed 4-dimensional manifold to be the minimal number of 1-handle stabilizations necessary for the surfaces to become ambiently isotopic. For every nonnegative integer $m$ we find a pair of 2-knots in the 4-sphere whose stabilization distance equals $m$. Next, using a generalized stabilization distance that counts connected sum with arbitrary 2-knots as distance zero, for every nonnegative integer $m$ we exhibit a knot $J_m$ in the 3-sphere with two slice discs in the 4-ball whose generalized stabilization distance equals $m$. We show this using homology of cyclic covers. Finally, we use metabelian twisted homology to show that for each $m$ there exists a knot and pair of slice discs with generalized stabilization distance at least $m$, with the additional property that abelian invariants associated to cyclic covering spaces coincide. This detects different choices of slicing discs corresponding to a fixed metabolising link on a Seifert surface.

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arXiv2020

Two-solvable and two-bipolar knots with large four-genera

For every integer g, we construct a 2-solvable and 2-bipolar knot whose topological 4-genus is greater than g. Note that 2-solvable knots are in particular algebraically slice and have vanishing Casson-Gordon obstructions. Similarly all known smooth 4-genus bounds from gauge theory and Floer homology vanish for 2-bipolar knots. Moreover, our knots bound smoothly embedded height four gropes in $D^4$, an a priori stronger condition than being 2-solvable. We use new lower bounds for the 4-genus arising from $L^{(2)}$-signature defects associated to meta-metabelian representations of the fundamental group.

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arXiv2020

The round handle problem

We present the Round Handle Problem, proposed by Freedman and Krushkal. It asks whether a collection of links, which contains the Generalised Borromean Rings, are slice in a 4-manifold R constructed from adding round handles to the four ball. A negative answer would contradict the union of the surgery conjecture and the s-cobordism conjecture for 4-manifolds with free fundamental group.

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arXiv2020

Embedding spheres in knot traces

The trace of $n$-framed surgery on a knot in $S^3$ is a 4-manifold homotopy equivalent to the 2-sphere. We characterise when a generator of the second homotopy group of such a manifold can be realised by a locally flat embedded 2-sphere whose complement has abelian fundamental group. Our characterisation is in terms of classical and computable 3-dimensional knot invariants. For each $n$, this provides conditions that imply a knot is topologically $n$-shake slice, directly analogous to the result of Freedman and Quinn that a knot with trivial Alexander polynomial is topologically slice.

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arXiv2019

Doubly slice knots and metabelian obstructions

For $\ell >1$, we develop $L^{(2)}$-signature obstructions for $(4\ell-3)$-dimensional knots with metabelian knot groups to be doubly slice. For each $\ell>1$, we construct an infinite family of knots on which our obstructions are non-zero, but for which double sliceness is not obstructed by any previously known invariant.

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arXiv2019

A family of freely slice good boundary links

We show that every good boundary link with a pair of derivative links on a Seifert surface satisfying a homotopically trivial plus assumption is freely slice. This subsumes all previously known methods for freely slicing good boundary links with two or more components, and provides new freely slice links.

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arXiv2019

The four genus of a link, Levine-Tristram signatures and satellites

We give a new proof that the Levine-Tristram signatures of a link give lower bounds for the minimal sum of the genera of a collection of oriented, locally flat, disjointly embedded surfaces that the link can bound in the 4-ball. We call this minimal sum the 4-genus of the link. We also extend a theorem of Cochran, Friedl and Teichner to show that the 4-genus of a link does not increase under infection by a string link, which is a generalised satellite construction, provided that certain homotopy triviality conditions hold on the axis curves, and that enough Milnor's invariants of the infection string link vanish. We construct knots for which the combination of the two results determines the 4-genus.

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arXiv2019

Whitney towers and abelian invariants of knots

We relate certain abelian invariants of a knot, namely the Alexander polynomial, the Blanchfield form, and the Arf invariant, to intersection data of a Whitney tower in the 4-ball bounded by the knot. We also give a new 3-dimensional algorithm for computing these invariants.

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arXiv2018

Symmetric chain complexes, twisted Blanchfield pairings, and knot concordance

We give a formula for the duality structure of the 3-manifold obtained by doing zero-framed surgery along a knot in the 3-sphere, starting from a diagram of the knot. We then use this to give a combinatorial algorithm for computing the twisted Blanchfield pairing of such 3-manifolds. With the twisting defined by Casson-Gordon style representations, we use our computation of the twisted Blanchfield pairing to show that some subtle satellites of genus two ribbon knots yield non-slice knots. The construction is subtle in the sense that, once based, the infection curve lies in the second derived subgroup of the knot group, and that we identify these infection curves explicitly.

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arXiv2018

A ribbon obstruction and derivatives of knots

We define an obstruction for a knot to be Z[Z]-homology ribbon, and use this to provide restrictions on the integers that can occur as the triple linking numbers of derivative links of knots that are either homotopy ribbon or doubly slice. Our main application finds new non-doubly slice knots. In particular this gives new information on the doubly solvable filtration of Taehee Kim: doubly algebraically slice ribbon knots need not be doubly (1)-solvable, and doubly algebraically slice knots need not be (0.5,1)-solvable. We also discuss potential connections to unsolved conjectures in knot concordance, such as generalised versions of Kauffman's conjecture. Moreover it is possible that our obstruction could fail to vanish on a slice knot.

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arXiv2018

Smooth and topological almost concordance

We investigate the disparity between smooth and topological almost concordance of knots in general 3-manifolds Y. Almost concordance is defined by considering knots in Y modulo concordance in Yx[0,1] and the action of the concordance group of knots in the 3-sphere that ties in local knots. We prove that the trivial free homotopy class in every 3-manifold other than the 3-sphere contains an infinite family of knots, all topologically concordant, but not smoothly almost concordant to one another. Then, in every lens space and for every free homotopy class, we find a pair of topologically concordant but not smoothly almost concordant knots. Finally, as a topological counterpoint to these results, we show that in every lens space every free homotopy class contains infinitely many topological almost concordance classes.

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