1,378 research outputs found

    Man and machine thinking about the smooth 4-dimensional Poincar\'e conjecture

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    While topologists have had possession of possible counterexamples to the smooth 4-dimensional Poincar\'{e} conjecture (SPC4) for over 30 years, until recently no invariant has existed which could potentially distinguish these examples from the standard 4-sphere. Rasmussen's s-invariant, a slice obstruction within the general framework of Khovanov homology, changes this state of affairs. We studied a class of knots K for which nonzero s(K) would yield a counterexample to SPC4. Computations are extremely costly and we had only completed two tests for those K, with the computations showing that s was 0, when a landmark posting of Akbulut (arXiv:0907.0136) altered the terrain. His posting, appearing only six days after our initial posting, proved that the family of ``Cappell--Shaneson'' homotopy spheres that we had geared up to study were in fact all standard. The method we describe remains viable but will have to be applied to other examples. Akbulut's work makes SPC4 seem more plausible, and in another section of this paper we explain that SPC4 is equivalent to an appropriate generalization of Property R (``in S^3, only an unknot can yield S^1 x S^2 under surgery''). We hope that this observation, and the rich relations between Property R and ideas such as taut foliations, contact geometry, and Heegaard Floer homology, will encourage 3-manifold topologists to look at SPC4.Comment: 37 pages; changes reflecting that the integer family of Cappell-Shaneson spheres are now known to be standard (arXiv:0907.0136

    Eigenvalue interlacing and weight parameters of graphs

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    Eigenvalue interlacing is a versatile technique for deriving results in algebraic combinatorics. In particular, it has been successfully used for proving a number of results about the relation between the (adjacency matrix or Laplacian) spectrum of a graph and some of its properties. For instance, some characterizations of regular partitions, and bounds for some parameters, such as the independence and chromatic numbers, the diameter, the bandwidth, etc., have been obtained. For each parameter of a graph involving the cardinality of some vertex sets, we can define its corresponding weight parameter by giving some "weights" (that is, the entries of the positive eigenvector) to the vertices and replacing cardinalities by square norms. The key point is that such weights "regularize" the graph, and hence allow us to define a kind of regular partition, called "pseudo-regular," intended for general graphs. Here we show how to use interlacing for proving results about some weight parameters and pseudo-regular partitions of a graph. For instance, generalizing a well-known result of Lov\'asz, it is shown that the weight Shannon capacity Θ∗\Theta^* of a connected graph \G, with nn vertices and (adjacency matrix) eigenvalues λ1>λ2≥.˙.≥λn\lambda_1>\lambda_2\ge\...\ge \lambda_n, satisfies \Theta\le \Theta^* \le \frac{\|\vecnu\|^2}{1-\frac{\lambda_1}{\lambda_n}} where Θ\Theta is the (standard) Shannon capacity and \vecnu is the positive eigenvector normalized to have smallest entry 1. In the special case of regular graphs, the results obtained have some interesting corollaries, such as an upper bound for some of the multiplicities of the eigenvalues of a distance-regular graph. Finally, some results involving the Laplacian spectrum are derived. spectrum are derived

    Generalization of neighborhood complexes

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    We introduce the notion of r-neighborhood complex for a positive integer r, which is a natural generalization of Lovasz neighborhood complex. The topologies of these complexes give some obstructions of the existence of graph maps. We applied these complexes to prove the nonexistence of graph maps about Kneser graphs. We prove that the fundamental groups of r-neighborhood complexes are closely related to the (2r)-fundamental groups defined in the author's previous paper.Comment: 8 page

    Some spectral and quasi-spectral characterizations of distance-regular graphs

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    © . This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/In this paper we consider the concept of preintersection numbers of a graph. These numbers are determined by the spectrum of the adjacency matrix of the graph, and generalize the intersection numbers of a distance-regular graph. By using the preintersection numbers we give some new spectral and quasi-spectral characterizations of distance-regularity, in particular for graphs with large girth or large odd-girth. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
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