We prove a cabling formula for the concordance invariant $ u^+$, defined by the author and Hom. This gives rise to a simple and effective 4-ball genus bound for many cable knots.
We prove a splicing formula for the LMO invariant, which is the universal finite-type invariant of rational homology $3$-spheres. Specifically, if a rational homology $3$-sphere $M$ is obtained by gluing the exteriors of two framed knots $K_1 subset M_1$ and $K_2subset M_2$ in rational homology $3$-spheres, our formula expresses the LMO invariant of $M$ in terms of the Kontsevich-LMO invariants of $(M_1,K_1)$ and $(M_2,K_2)$. The proof uses the techniques that Bar-Natan and Lawrence developed to obtain a rational surgery formula for the LMO invariant. In low degrees, we recover Fujitas formula for the Casson-Walker invariant and we observe that the second term of the Ohtsuki series is not additive under standard splicing. The splicing formula also works when each $M_i$ comes with a link $L_i$ in addition to the knot $K_i$, hence we get a satellite formula for the Kontsevich-LMO invariant.
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 Juhasz-Miller-Zemkes bound on fusion number coming from the torsion order of knot Floer homology and Hanselman-Watsons cabling formula for immersed curves.
Given a rank 2 hermitian bundle over a 3-manifold that is non-trivial admissible in the sense of Floer, one defines its Casson invariant as half the signed count of its projectively flat connections, suitably perturbed. We show that the 2-divisibility of this integer invariant is controlled in part by a formula involving the mod 2 cohomology ring of the 3-manifold. This formula counts flat connections on the induced adjoint bundle with Klein-four holonomy.
We prove a connected sum formula for involutive Heegaard Floer homology, and use it to study the involutive correction terms of connected sums. In particular, we give an example of a three-manifold with $underline{d}(Y) eq d(Y) eq overline{d}(Y)$. We also construct a homomorphism from the three-dimensional homology cobordism group to an algebraically defined Abelian group, consisting of certain complexes (equipped with a homotopy involution) modulo a notion of local equivalence.
Given a 3-manifold M containing an incompressible surface Q, we obtain an inequality relating the Heegaard genus of M and the Heegaard genera of the components of M - Q. Here the sum of the genera of the components of M - Q is bounded above by a linear expression in terms of the genus of M, the Euler characteristic of Q and the number of parallelism classes of essential annuli for which representatives can be simultaneously imbedded in the components of M - Q.