Homological thickness and stability of torus knots

Quasi-alternating links are a natural generalization of alternating links. In this paper, we show that quasi-alternating links are "homologically thin" for both Khovanov homology and knot Floer homology. In particular, their bigraded homology groups are determined by the signature of the link, together with the Euler characteristic of the respective homology (i.e. the Jones or the Alexander polynomial). The proofs use the exact triangles relating the homology of a link with t...

Given a link in the thickened annulus, its annular Khovanov homology carries an action of the Lie algebra $\mathfrak{sl}_2$, which is natural with respect to annular link cobordisms. We consider the problem of lifting this action to the stable homotopy refinement of the annular homology. As part of this program, the actions of the standard generators of $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ are lifted to maps of spectra. In particular, it follows that the $\mathfrak{sl}_2$ action on homology com...

This is an expository paper discussing some parallels between the Khovanov and knot Floer homologies. We describe the formal similarities between the theories and give some examples which illustrate a somewhat mysterious correspondence between them.

We give a fresh introduction to the Khovanov Homology theory for knots and links, with special emphasis on its extension to tangles, cobordisms and 2-knots. By staying within a world of topological pictures a little longer than in other articles on the subject, the required extension becomes essentially tautological. And then a simple application of an appropriate functor (a `TQFT') to our pictures takes them to the familiar realm of complexes of (graded) vector spaces and or...

Khovanov homology for knots has generated a flurry of activity in the topology community. This paper studies the Khovanov type cohomology for graphs with a special attention to torsions. When the underlying algebra is $\mathbb{Z}[x]/(x^2)$, we determine precisely those graphs whose cohomology contains torsion. For a larger class of algebras, we show that torsion often occurs. Our investigation of torsion led to other related general results. The ideas of this paper could pote...

We define and study a family of link invariants $\mathit{HFK}_{n}(L)$. Although these homology theories are defined using holomorphic disc counts, they share many properties with $sl_{n}$ homology. Using these theories, we give a framework that generalizes the conjectured spectral sequence from Khovanov homology to $\delta$-graded knot Floer homology. In particular, we conjecture that for all links $L$ in $S^3$ and all $n\ge 1$, there is a spectral sequence from the $sl_{n}$ ...

For a 3-manifold with torus boundary admitting an appropriate involution, we show that Khovanov homology provides obstructions to certain exceptional Dehn fillings. For example, given a strongly invertible knot in S^3, we give obstructions to lens space surgeries, as well as obstructions to surgeries with finite fundamental group. These obstructions are based on homological width in Khovanov homology, and in the case of finite fundamental group depend on a calculation of the ...

We give new link detection results for knot and link Floer homology inspired by recent work on Khovanov homology. We show that knot Floer homology detects $T(2,4)$, $T(2,6)$, $T(3,3)$, $L7n1$, and the link $T(2,2n)$ with the orientation of one component reversed. We show link Floer homology detects $T(2,2n)$ and $T(n,n)$, for all $n$. Additionally we identify infinitely many pairs of links such that both links in the pair are each detected by link Floer homology but have the ...

We study the space of slice-torus invariants. In particular we characterize the set of values that slice-torus invariants may take on a given knot in terms of the stable smooth slice genus. Our study reveals that the resolution of the local Thom conjecture implies the existence of slice torus invariants without having to appeal to any explicit construction from a knot homology theory.

A theorem of Kronheimer and Mrowka states that Khovanov homology is able to detect the unknot. That is, if a knot has the Khovanov homology of the unknot, then it is equivalent to it. Similar results hold for the trefoils and the figure-eight knot. These are the simplest of the Legendrian simple knots. We conjecture that Khovanov homology is able to distinguish Legendrian and Transversely simple knots. Using the torus and twist knots, numerical evidence is provided for all pr...