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We consider the question of extending a smooth homotopy coherent finite cyclic group action on the boundary of a smooth 4-manifold to its interior. As a result, we prove that Dehn twists along any Seifert homology sphere, except the 3-sphere, on their simply connected positive-definite fillings are infinite order exotic., Comment: 23 pages; minor changes, comments welcome

This article presents a survey on the topic of embedding 3-manifolds in definite 4-manifolds, emphasizing the latest progress in the field. We will focus on the significant role played by Donaldson's diagonalization theorem and the combinatorics of integral lattices in understanding these embeddings. Additionally, the article introduces a new result concerning the embedding of amphichiral lens spaces in negative-definite manifolds., Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, final version

We prove that the $(2n,1)$-cable of the figure-eight knot is not smoothly slice when $n$ is odd, by using the real Seiberg-Witten Fr{\o}yshov invariant of Konno-Miyazawa-Taniguchi. For the computation, we develop an $O(2)$-equivariant version of the lattice homotopy type, originally introduced by Dai-Sasahira-Stoffregen. This enables us to compute the real Seiberg-Witten Floer homotopy type for a certain class of knots. Additionally, we present some computations of Miyazawa's real framed Seiberg-Witten invariant for 2-knots., Comment: 31 pages, 1 figure

We introduce HyperCLOVA X, a family of large language models (LLMs) tailored to the Korean language and culture, along with competitive capabilities in English, math, and coding. HyperCLOVA X was trained on a balanced mix of Korean, English, and code data, followed by instruction-tuning with high-quality human-annotated datasets while abiding by strict safety guidelines reflecting our commitment to responsible AI. The model is evaluated across various benchmarks, including comprehensive reasoning, knowledge, commonsense, factuality, coding, math, chatting, instruction-following, and harmlessness, in both Korean and English. HyperCLOVA X exhibits strong reasoning capabilities in Korean backed by a deep understanding of the language and cultural nuances. Further analysis of the inherent bilingual nature and its extension to multilingualism highlights the model's cross-lingual proficiency and strong generalization ability to untargeted languages, including machine translation between several language pairs and cross-lingual inference tasks. We believe that HyperCLOVA X can provide helpful guidance for regions or countries in developing their sovereign LLMs., Comment: 44 pages; updated authors list and fixed author names

We introduce an oriented rational band move, a generalization of an ordinary oriented band move, and show that if a knot $K$ in the three-sphere can be made into the $(n+1)$-component unlink by $n$ oriented rational band moves, then $K$ is rationally slice.

Conjecturally, a knot is slice if and only if its positive Whitehead double is slice. We consider an analogue of this conjecture for slice disks in the four-ball: two slice disks of a knot are smoothly isotopic if and only if their positive Whitehead doubles are smoothly isotopic. We provide evidence for this conjecture, using a range of techniques. More generally, we consider when isotopy obstructions persist under satellite operations. In particular, we show that obstructions coming from knot Floer homology, Seiberg-Witten theory, and Khovanov homology often behave well under satellite operations. We apply these strategies to give a systematic method for constructing vast numbers of exotic disks in the four-ball, including the first infinite family of pairwise exotic slice disks. These same techniques are then upgraded to produce exotic disks that remain exotic after any prescribed number of internal stabilizations. Finally, we show that the branched double covers of certain stably-exotic disks become diffeomorphic after a single stabilization with $S^2 \times S^2$, hence stabilizing them yields exotic surfaces that have diffeomorphic branched covers.

A geometric interpretation of the vanishing of Milnor's higher order linking numbers remains an important open problem in the study of link concordance. In the 1990's, works of Cochran-Orr and Livingston exhibit a potential resolution to this problem in the form of homology boundary links. They exhibit the first known links with vanishing Milnor's invariants that are not concordant to boundary links. It remains unknown whether every link with vanishing Milnor's invariants is concordant to a homology boundary link. In this paper we present an obstruction to concordance to a homology boundary link and a potential path to the construction of links with vanishing Milnor's invariants which are not concordant to a homology boundary link. Our obstructions and examples fit into the language of the solvable filtration due to Cochran-Orr-Teichner. Along the way we demonstrate that every homology boundary link is equivalent to a boundary link modulo the 0.5 term of the solvable filtration, in contrast to the results of Cochran-Orr and Livingston. Finally we exhibit highly solvable homology boundary links that are not concordant to boundary links, pushing the work of Cochran-Orr and Livingston deep into the solvable filtration.

A knot in $S^3$ is topologically slice if it bounds a locally flat disk in $B^4$. A knot in $S^3$ is rationally slice if it bounds a smooth disk in a rational homology ball. We prove that the smooth concordance group of topologically and rationally slice knots admits a $\mathbb{Z}^\infty$ subgroup. All previously known examples of knots that are both topologically and rationally slice were of order two. As a direct consequence, it follows that there are infinitely many topologically slice knots that are strongly rationally slice but not slice., Comment: 11 pages, no figures, comments welcome

We discuss an obstruction to a knot being smoothly slice that comes from minimum-genus bounds on smoothly embedded surfaces in definite 4-manifolds. As an example, we provide an alternate proof of the fact that the (2,1)-cable of the figure eight knot is not smoothly slice, as shown by Dai--Kang--Mallick--Park--Stoffregen in 2022. The main technical input of our argument consists of gauge-theoretic obstructions to smooth small-genus surfaces representing certain homology classes in $\mathbb{CP}^2\#\mathbb{CP}^2$ proved by Bryan in the 1990s., Comment: 6 pages + references, 2 figures

We prove that there are homology three-spheres that bound definite four-manifolds, but any such bounding four-manifold must be built out of many handles. The argument uses the homology cobordism invariant $\Gamma$ from instanton Floer homology., Comment: 22 pages. This version covers more general three-manifolds

This paper considers the problem of determining the smallest (as measured by the second Betti number) smooth negative-definite filling of a lens space. The main result is to classify those lens spaces for which the associated negative-definite canonical plumbing is minimal. The classification takes the form of a list of 10 "forbidden" subgraphs that cannot appear in the plumbing graph if the corresponding plumbed 4-manifold is minimal. We also show that whenever the plumbing is minimal any other negative-definite filling for the given lens space has the same intersection form up to addition of diagonal summands. Consequences regarding smooth embeddings of lens spaces in 4-manifolds are also discussed.

We prove that the $(2,1)$-cable of the figure-eight knot is not smoothly slice by showing that its branched double cover bounds no equivariant homology ball., Comment: 14 pages; 5 figures. Final version; to appear in Inventiones Mathematicae

We define a nontrivial mod 2 valued additive concordance invariant defined on the torsion subgroup of the knot concordance group using involutive knot Floer package. For knots not contained in its kernel, we prove that their iterated $(\text{odd},1)$-cables have infinite order in the concordance group and, among them, infinitely many are linearly independent. Furthermore, by taking $(2,1)$-cables of the aforementioned knots, we present an infinite family of knots which are strongly rationally slice but not slice., Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure; comments welcome!

The unknotting number of knots is a difficult quantity to compute, and even its behavior under basic satelliting operations is not understood. We establish a lower bound on the unknotting number of cable knots and iterated cable knots purely in terms of the winding number of the pattern. The proof uses Alishahi-Eftekhary's bounds on unknotting number from knot Floer homology together with Hanselman-Watson's computation of the knot Floer homology of cables in terms of immersed curves in the punctured torus., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures

We answer a question of Livingston from 1982 by producing Seifert surfaces of the same genus for a knot in $S^3$ that do not become isotopic when their interiors are pushed into $B^4$. In particular, we identify examples where the surfaces are not even topologically isotopic in $B^4$, examples that are topologically but not smoothly isotopic, and examples of infinite families of surfaces that are distinct only up to isotopy rel. boundary. Our main proofs distinguish surfaces using the cobordism maps on Khovanov homology, and our calculations demonstrate the stability and computability of these maps under certain satellite operations., Comment: 31 pages + bibliography, 28 figures. Some computational details available in ancillary file. Compared to v1, we added Theorems 1.4 and 1.5 producing infinite families of Seifert surfaces that are pairwise not isotopic rel. boundary in B^4. (In v3, just corrected floats in Fig. 27.)

We introduce a geometric operation, which we call the relative Whitney trick, that removes a single double point between properly immersed surfaces in a $4$-manifold with boundary. Using the relative Whitney trick we prove that every link in a homology sphere is homotopic to a link that is topologically slice in a contractible topological $4$-manifold. We further prove that any link in a homology sphere is order $k$ Whitney tower concordant to a link in $S^3$ for all $k$. Finally, we explore the minimum Gordian distance from a link in $S^3$ to a homotopically trivial link. Extending this notion to links in homology spheres, we use the relative Whitney trick to make explicit computations for 3-component links and establish bounds in general., Comment: Corrected a technical error in Section 2. Improved exposition throughout. To appear in Selecta Mathematica

We show that the difference between the topological 4-genus of a knot and the minimal genus of a surface bounded by that knot that can be decomposed into a smooth concordance followed by an algebraically simple locally flat surface can be arbitrarily large. This extends work of Hedden-Livingston-Ruberman showing that there are topologically slice knots which are not smoothly concordant to any knot with trivial Alexander polynomial., Comment: 7 pages

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., Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures

A knot in $S^3$ is rationally slice if it bounds a disk in a rational homology ball. We give an infinite family of rationally slice knots that are linearly independent in the knot concordance group. In particular, our examples are all infinite order. All previously known examples of rationally slice knots were order two., Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures, final version, to appear in Geometry & Topology

$Li_{2}RuO_{3}$ with a honeycomb structure undergoes a drastic transition from a regular honeycomb lattice with the $C2/m$ space group to a valence bond solid state of the $P2_{1}/m$ space group with an extremely strong dimerization at 550 K. We synthesized $Li_{2}Ru_{1-x}Mn_{x}O_{3}$ with a full solid solution and investigated doping effects on the valence bond solid state as a function of Mn content. The valence bond solid state is found to be stable up to $x = 0.2$, based on our extensive experiments: structural studies, resistivity, and magnetic susceptibility. On the other hand, the extended x-ray absorption fine structure analyses show that the dimer local structure remains robust even above $x = 0.2$ with a minimal effect on the dimer bond length. This indicates that the locally-disordered dimer structure survives well into the Mn-rich phase even though the thermodynamically stable average structure has the $C2/m$ space group. Our results prove that the dimer formation in $Li_{2}RuO_{3}$ is predominantly a local phenomenon driven by the formation of orbitally-assisted metal-metal bonds and that these dimers are relatively robust against doping-induced disorder., Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures

We prove results exploring the relationship between the fundamental group and the second Betti number of minimal symplectic fillings of lens spaces. These results unify and generalize several disparate facts appearing in the literature. The Fibonacci numbers make a cameo appearance., Comment: 13 pages

Among the knots that are the connected sum of two torus knots with cobordism distance 1, we characterize those that have 4-dimensional clasp number at least 2, and we show that their n-fold connected self-sum has 4-dimensional clasp number at least 2n. Our proof works in the topological category. To contrast this, we build a family of topologically slice knots for which the n-fold connected self-sum has 4-ball genus n and 4-dimensional clasp number at least 2n., Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, comments welcome! V2: Improvement of exposition and correction of typos

We show that in a prime, closed, oriented 3-manifold M, equivalent knots are isotopic if and only if the orientation preserving mapping class group is trivial. In the case of irreducible, closed, oriented $3$-manifolds we show the more general fact that every orientation preserving homeomorphism which preserves free homotopy classes of loops is isotopic to the identity. In the case of $S^1\times S^2$, we give infinitely many examples of knots whose isotopy classes are changed by the Gluck twist., Comment: 37 pages, 16 figures

The fusion number of a ribbon knot is the minimal number of 1-handles needed to construct a ribbon disk. The strong homotopy fusion number of a ribbon knot is the minimal number of 2-handles in a handle decomposition of a ribbon disk complement. We demonstrate that these invariants behave completely differently under cabling by showing that the (p,1)-cable of any ribbon knot with fusion number one has strong homotopy fusion number one and fusion number p. Our main tools are Juh\'asz-Miller-Zemke's bound on fusion number coming from the torsion order of knot Floer homology and Hanselman-Watson's cabling formula for immersed curves., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, Version 2: Minor changes to abstract and introduction. Added a reference to Meier and Zupan's work

Prime power fold cyclic branched covers along smoothly slice knots all bound rational homology balls. This phenomenon, however, does not characterize slice knots. In this paper, we give a new construction of non-slice knots that have the above property. The sliceness obstruction comes from computing twisted Alexander polynomials, and we introduce new techniques to simplify their calculation., Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, Version 2: Minor changes to abstract and introduction. Added references on knots that are not concordant to their reverses

We determine the pairs of torus knots that have a genus one cobordism between them, with one notable exception. This is done by combining obstructions using $\nu^+$ from the Heegaard Floer knot complex and explicit constructions of cobordisms. As an application, we determine the pairs of torus knots related by a single crossing change. Also, we determine the pairs of Thurston-Bennequin number maximizing Legendrian torus knots that have a genus one exact Lagrangian cobordism, with one exception., Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures. V3: Minor corrections and implementation of referee's recommendations. This version has been accepted for publication by IMRN

We construct links of arbitrarily many components each component of which is slice and yet are not concordant to any link with even one unknotted component. The only tool we use comes from the Alexander modules., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

We present infinitely many homology spheres which contain two distinct knots whose 0-surgeries are $S^1 \times S^2$. This resolves a question posed by Kirby and Melvin in 1978., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. V2: minor modifications

Li2RuO3 undergoes a structural transition at a relatively high temperature of 550 K with a distinct dimerization of Ru-Ru bonds on the otherwise isotropic honeycomb lattice. It exhibits a unique herringbone dimerization pattern with a largest ever reported value of the bond shrinkage of about ~ 0.5 \r{A}. Despite extensive studies, both theoretical and experimental, however, its origin and its effect on physical properties still remain to be understood. In this work, using high quality single crystals we investigated the anisotropy of resistivity ($\rho$) and magnetic susceptibility ($\chi$) to find a very clear anisotropy: $\rho$$_c*$ > $\rho$$_b$ > $\rho$$_a$ and $\chi$$_b$ > $\chi$$_a$ > $\chi$$_c*$. For possible theoretical interpretations, we carried out density functional calculations to conclude that these anisotropic behavior is due to the correlation effects combined with the unique orbital structure and the dimerization of Ru 4d bands., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures

Every lens space has a locally flat embedding in a connected sum of 8 copies of the complex projective plane and a smooth embedding in n copies of the complex projective plane for some positive integer n. We show that there is no n such that every lens space smoothly embeds in n copies of the complex projective plane., Comment: 6 pages

We consider the question of when a rational homology 3-sphere is rational homology cobordant to a connected sum of lens spaces. We prove that every rational homology cobordism class in the subgroup generated by lens spaces is represented by a unique connected sum of lens spaces whose first homology embeds in any other element in the same class. As a first consequence, we show that several natural maps to the rational homology cobordism group have infinite rank cokernels. Further consequences include a divisibility condition between the determinants of a connected sum of 2-bridge knots and any other knot in the same concordance class. Lastly, we use knot Floer homology combined with our main result to obstruct Dehn surgeries on knots from being rationally cobordant to lens spaces., Comment: 19 pages, final version to appear in Compositio Mathematica

Every closed orientable surface S has the following property: any two connected covers of S of the same degree are homeomorphic (as spaces). In this, paper we give a complete classification of compact 3-manifolds with empty or toroidal boundary which have the above property. We also discuss related group-theoretic questions., Comment: 29 pages. V3: Implements suggestions from a referee report. This version has been accepted for publication by IUMJ

We produce infinite families of knots $\{K^i\}_{i\geq 1}$ for which the set of cables $\{K^i_{p,1}\}_{i,p\geq 1}$ is linearly independent in the knot concordance group. We arrange that these examples lie arbitrarily deep in the solvable and bipolar filtrations of the knot concordance group, denoted by $\{F_n\}$ and $\{B_n\}$ respectively. As a consequence, this result cannot be reached by any combination of algebraic concordance invariants, Casson-Gordon invariants, and Heegaard-Floer invariants such as tau, epsilon, and Upsilon. We give two applications of this result. First, for any n>=0, there exists an infinite family $\{K^i\}_{i\geq 1}$ such that for each fixed i, $\{K^i_{2^j,1}\}_{j\geq 0}$ is a basis for an infinite rank summand of $F_n$ and $\{K^i_{p,1}\}_{i, p\geq 1}$ is linearly independent in $F_{n}/F_{n.5}$. Second, for any n>=1, we give filtered counterexamples to Kauffman's conjecture on slice knots by constructing smoothly slice knots with genus one Seifert surfaces where one derivative curve has nontrivial Arf invariant and the other is nontrivial in both $F_n/F_{n.5}$ and $B_{n-1}/B_{n+1}$. We also give examples of smoothly slice knots with genus one Seifert surfaces such that one derivative has nontrivial Arf invariant and the other is topologically slice but not smoothly slice., Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures

Let p and q be distinct integers greater than one. We show that the 2-component pretzel link P(p,q,-p,-q) is not slice, even though it has a ribbon mutant, by using 3-fold branched covers and an obstruction based on Donaldson's diagonalization theorem. As a consequence, we prove the slice-ribbon conjecture for 4-stranded 2-component pretzel links., Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, V2: Implements suggestions from a referee report. This version has been accepted for publication by MRL

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., Comment: 25 pages, 3 figures

We establish a number of results about smooth and topological concordance of knots in $S^1\times S^2$. The winding number of a knot in $S^1\times S^2$ is defined to be its class in $H_1(S^1\times S^2;\mathbb{Z})\cong \mathbb{Z}$. We show that there is a unique smooth concordance class of knots with winding number one. This improves the corresponding result of Friedl-Nagel-Orson-Powell in the topological category. We say a knot in $S^1\times S^2$ is slice (resp. topologically slice) if it bounds a smooth (resp. locally flat) disk in $D^2\times S^2$. We show that there are infinitely many topological concordance classes of non-slice knots, and moreover, for any winding number other than $\pm 1$, there are infinitely many topological concordance classes even within the collection of slice knots. Additionally we demonstrate the distinction between the smooth and topological categories by constructing infinite families of slice knots that are topologically but not smoothly concordant, as well as non-slice knots that are topologically slice and topologically concordant, but not smoothly concordant., Comment: 25 pages, 19 figures, final version, to appear in Journal of London Mathematical Society

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., Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures. To appear in International Mathematics Research Notices