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1. Characterizing slopes for 52$$5_2$$

   https://doi.org/10.1112/jlms.12951  

   Baldwin, John A; Sivek, Steven (June 2024, Journal of the London Mathematical Society)

   Abstract We prove that all rational slopes are characterizing for the knot , except possibly for positive integers. Along the way, we classify the Dehn surgeries on knots in that produce the Brieskorn sphere , and we study knots on which large integral surgeries are almost L‐spaces. 

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2. Heegaard Floer homology and cosmetic surgeries in $S^3$

   https://doi.org/10.4171/JEMS/1218  

   Hanselman, Jonathan (March 2022, Journal of the European Mathematical Society)

   If a knot K in S^3 admits a pair of truly cosmetic surgeries, we show that the surgery slopes are either ±2 or ±1/q for some value of q that is explicitly determined by the knot Floer homology of K. Moreover, in the former case the genus of K must be 2, and in the latter case there is a bound relating q to the genus and the Heegaard Floer thickness of K. As a consequence, we show that the cosmetic crossing conjecture holds for alternating knots (or more generally, Heegaard Floer thin knots) with genus not equal to 2. We also show that the conjecture holds for any knot K for which each prime summand of K has at most 16 crossings; our techniques rule out cosmetic surgeries in this setting except for slopes ±1 and ±2 on a small number of knots, and these remaining examples can be checked by comparing hyperbolic invariants. These results make use of the surgery formula for Heegaard Floer homology, which has already proved to be a powerful tool for obstructing cosmetic surgeries; we get stronger obstructions than previously known by considering the full graded theory. We make use of a new graphical interpretation of knot Floer homology and the surgery formula in terms of immersed curves, which makes the grading information we need easier to access. 

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3. Going To The Other Side Via The Resurgent Bridge

   Costin, O; Dunne, G; Gruen, A; Gukov, S (October 2023, arXiv)

   arXiv (Ed.)

   Using resurgent analysis we offer a novel mathematical perspective on a curious bijection (duality) that has many potential applications ranging from the theory of vertex algebras to the physics of SCFTs in various dimensions, to q-series invariants in low-dimensional topology that arise e.g. in Vafa-Witten theory and in non-perturbative completion of complex Chern-Simons theory. In particular, we introduce explicit numerical algorithms that efficiently implement this bijection. This bijection is founded on preservation of relations, a fundamental property of resurgent functions. Using resurgent analysis we find new structures and patterns in complex Chern-Simons theory on closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds obtained by surgeries on hyperbolic twist knots. The Borel plane exhibits several intriguing hints of a new form of integrability. An important role in this analysis is played by the twisted Alexander polynomials and the adjoint Reidemeister torsion, which help us determine the Stokes data. The method of singularity elimination enables extraction of geometric data even for very distant Borel singularities, leading to detailed non-perturbative information from perturbative data. We also introduce a new double-scaling limit to probe 0-surgeries from the limiting r → ∞ behavior of 1 r surgeries, and apply it to the family of hyperbolic twist knots. 

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4. On the tau invariants in instanton and monopole Floer theories

   https://doi.org/10.1112/topo.12346  

   Ghosh, Sudipta; Li, Zhenkun; Wong, C‐M Michael (June 2024, Journal of Topology)

   Abstract We unify two existing approaches to thetauinvariants in instanton and monopole Floer theories, by identifying , defined by the second author via theminusflavors and of the knot homologies, with , defined by Baldwin and Sivek via cobordism maps of the 3‐manifold homologies induced by knot surgeries. We exhibit several consequences, including a relationship with Heegaard Floer theory, and use our result to compute and for twist knots. 

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5. Exotic Mazur manifolds and knot trace invariants

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aim.2021.107994  

   Hayden, Kyle; Mark, Thomas E; Piccirillo, Lisa (November 2021, Advances in Mathematics)

   From a handle-theoretic perspective, the simplest contractible 4-manifolds, other than the 4-ball, are Mazur manifolds. We produce the first pairs of Mazur manifolds that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic. Our diffeomorphism obstruction comes from our proof that the knot Floer homology concordance invariant ν is an invariant of the trace of a knot, i.e. the smooth 4-manifold obtained by attaching a 2-handle to the 4-ball along K. This provides a computable, integer-valued diffeomorphism invariant that is effective at distinguishing exotic smooth structures on knot traces and other simple 4-manifolds, including when other adjunction-type obstructions are ineffective. We also show that the concordance invariants τ and ϵ are not knot trace invariants. As a corollary to the existence of exotic Mazur manifolds, we produce integer homology 3-spheres admitting two distinct surgeries to $$S^1 \times S^2$$, resolving a question from Problem 1.16 in Kirby's list. 

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