Invariants of knotted surfaces from link homology and bridge trisections

Adam Saltz

Published 2018-09-17Version 1

Meier and Zupan showed that every surface in the four-sphere admits a bridge trisection and can therefore be represented by three simple tangles. This raises the possibility of applying methods from link homology to knotted surfaces. We use link homology to construct an invariant of knotted surfaces (up to isotopy) which distinguishes the unknotted sphere from certain knotted spheres. We also construct an invariant of a bridge trisected surface which takes the form of an $A_\infty$-algebra. Both invariants are defined by a novel connection between $A_\infty$-algebras and Manolescu and Ozsv\'ath's hyperboxes of chain complexes.