Invariants of Boundary Link Cobordism

We first present three graphic surgery formulae for the degree $n$ part $Z_n$ of the Kontsevich-Kuperberg-Thurston universal finite type invariant of rational homology spheres. Each of these three formulae determines an alternate sum of the form $$\sum_{I \subset N} (-1)^{\sharp I}Z_n(M_I)$$ where $N$ is the set of components of a framed algebraically split link $L$ in a rational homology sphere $M$, and $M_I$ denotes the manifold resulting from the Dehn surgeries on the comp...

We develop a version of Seiberg--Witten Floer cohomology/homotopy type for a spin$^c$ 4-manifold with boundary and with an involution which reverses the spin$^c$ structure, as well as a version of Floer cohomology/homotopy type for oriented links with non-zero determinant. This framework generalizes the previous work of the authors regarding Floer homotopy type for spin 3-manifolds with involutions and for knots. Based on this Floer cohomological setting, we prove Fr{\o}yshov...

The survey we are presenting is over 22 years old but it has still some ideas which where never published (except in Polish). This survey is the base of the third Chapter of my book: KNOTS: From combinatorics of knot diagrams to combinatorial topology based on knots, which is still in preparation (but compare http://arxiv.org/pdf/math.GT/0512630). The purpose of this survey is to present a new combinatorial method of constructing invariants of isotopy classes of tame links....

We study cobordisms and cobordisms rel boundary of PL locally-flat disk knots $D^{n-2}\into D^n$. Cobordisms of disk knots that do not fix the boundary sphere knots are easily classified by the cobordism properties of these boundaries, and any two even-dimensional disk knots with isotopic boundary knots are cobordant rel boundary. However, the cobordism rel boundary theory of odd-dimensional disk knots is more subtle. Generalizing results of Levine on cobordism of sphere knot...

In this paper we define and investigate Z/2-homology cobordism invariants of Z/2-homology 3-spheres which turn out to be related to classical invariants of knots. As an application we show that many lens spaces have infinite order in the Z/2-homology cobordism group and we prove a lower bound for the slice genus of a knot on which integral surgery yields a given Z/2-homology sphere. We also give some new examples of 3-manifolds which cannot be obtained by integral surgery on ...

A {\it blink} is a plane graph with its edges being red or green. A {\it 3D-space} or, simply, a {\it space} is a connected, closed and oriented 3-manifold. In this work we explore in details, for the first time, the fact that every blink induces a space and any space is induced by some blink (actually infinitely many blinks). What is the space of a green triangle? And of a red square? Are they the same? These questions were condensed into a single one that guided a great par...

We define the Witt coindex of a link with non-trivial Alexander polynomial, as a concordance invariant from the Seifert form. We show that it provides an upper bound for the (locally flat) slice Euler characteristic of the link, extending the work of Levine on algebraically slice knots and Taylor on the genera of knots. Then we extend the techniques by Levine on isometric structures and characterize completely the forms of coindex $1$ under the condition that the symmetrized ...

We survey some results in the field of equivariant cobordism. In particular, we use methods from equivariant stable homotopy theory to calculate the unoriented $C_2$-equivariant bordism ring $\Omega^{C_2}_*$, which was originally calculated by Alexander using other methods. Our proof method generalizes well to other settings, such as equivariant complex cobordism, and affords a formal group theoretic interpretation of Alexander's calculation.

Both classical and virtual knots arise as formal Gauss diagrams modulo some abstract moves corresponding to Reidemeister moves. If we forget about both over/under crossings structure and writhe numbers of knots modulo the same Reidemeister moves, we get a dramatic simplification of virtual knots, which kills all classical knots. However, many virtual knots survive after this simplification. We construct invariants of these objects and present their applications to minimalit...

In [Duke Math. J. 101 (1999) 359-426], Mikhail Khovanov constructed a homology theory for oriented links, whose graded Euler characteristic is the Jones polynomial. He also explained how every link cobordism between two links induces a homomorphism between their homology groups, and he conjectured the invariance (up to sign) of this homomorphism under ambient isotopy of the link cobordism. In this paper we prove this conjecture, after having made a necessary improvement on it...