Äquivariante Whiteheadtorsion.
s paper presents some examples and a survey of results concerning a new way of presenting knots and links, together with the corresponding link invariant. More detailed accounts are given in [Cr, C-N, Nu1, Nu2, Nu3].
In the early 90's J. Birman and W. Menasco worked out a nice technique for studying links presented in the form of a closed braid. The technique is based on certain foliated surfaces and uses tricks similar to those that were introduced earlier by D. Bennequin. A few years later P. Cromwell adapted Birman-Menasco's method for studying so-called arc-presentations of links and established some of their basic properties. Here we further develop that technique and the theory of arc-presentations, and...
We investigate the natural domain of definition of the Godbillon-Vey 2- dimensional cohomology class of the group of diffeomorphisms of the circle. We introduce the notion of area functionals on a space of functions on the circle, we give a sufficiently large space of functions with nontrivial area functional and we give a sufficiently large group of Lipschitz homeomorphisms of the circle where the Godbillon-Vey class is defined.
To any compactly supported, area preserving, piecewise linear homeomorphism of the plane is associated a relation in of the smallest field whose elements are needed to write the homeomorphism.Using a formula of J. Morita, we show how to calculate the relation, in some simple cases. As applications, a “reciprocity” formula for a pair of triangles in the plane, and some explicit elements of torsion in of certain function fields are found.
This is a survey of some consequences of the fact that the fundamental group of the orbifold with singular set the Borromean link and isotropy cyclic of order 4 is a universal kleinian group.