J. Elisenda Grigsby

Grid Diagrams for Lens Spaces and Combinatorial Knot Floer Homology

Similar to knots in S 3 , any knot in a lens space has a grid diagram from which one can combinatorially compute all of its knot Floer homology invariants. We give an explicit description of the generators, differentials, and rational Maslov and Alexander gradings in terms of combinatorial data on the grid diagram. Motivated by existing results for the Floer homology of knots in S 3 and the similarity of the resulting combinatorics presented here, we conjecture that a certain family of knots is characterized by their Floer homology. Coupled with the work of the third author, an affirmative answer to this would prove the Berge conjecture, which catalogs the knots in S 3 admitting lens space surgeries.

Knot concordance and Heegaard Floer homology invariants in branched covers

By studying the Heegaard Floer homology of the preimage of a knot K in S^3 inside its double branched cover, we develop simple obstructions to K having finite order in the classical smooth concordance group. As an application, we prove that all 2-bridge knots of crossing number at most 12 for which the smooth concordance order was previously unknown have infinite smooth concordance order.

Knot Floer homology in cyclic branched covers

In this paper, we introduce a sequence of invariants of a knot K in S^3: the knot Floer homology groups of the preimage of K in the m-fold cyclic branched cover over K. We exhibit the knot Floer homology in the m-fold branched cover as the categorification of a multiple of the Turaev torsion in the case where the m-fold branched cover is a rational homology sphere. In addition, when K is a 2-bridge knot, we prove that the knot Floer homology of the lifted knot in a particular Spin^c structure in the branched double cover matches the knot Floer homology of the original knot K in S^3. We conclude with a calculation involving two knots with identical knot Floer homology in S^3 for which the knot Floer homology groups in the double branched cover differ as Z_2-graded groups.

Sutured Khovanov homology, Hochschild homology, and the Ozsváth-Szabó spectral sequence

In 2001, Khovanov and Seidel constructed a faithful action of the (m+1)-strand braid group on the derived category of left modules over a quiver algebra, A_m. We interpret the Hochschild homology of the Khovanov-Seidel braid invariant as a direct summand of the sutured Khovanov homology of the annular braid closure.

An Elementary Fact About Unlinked Braid Closures

Let \(n \in \mathbb {Z}^+\). We provide two short proofs of the following classical fact, one using Khovanov homology and one using Heegaard–Floer homology: if the closure of an n-strand braid \(\sigma \) is the n-component unlink, then \(\sigma \) is the trivial braid.