This paper concerns the problem of existence of taut foliations among $3$-manifolds. Since the contribution of David Gabai, we know that closed $3$-manifolds with non-trivial second homology group admit a taut foliation. The essential part of this paper focuses on Seifert fibered homology $3$-spheres. The result is quite different if they are integral or rational but non-integral homology $3$-spheres. Concerning integral homology $3$-spheres, we can see that all but the $3$-sphere and the Poincaré $3$-sphere admit a taut foliation. Concerning non-integral homology $3$-spheres, we prove there are infinitely many which admit a taut foliation, and infinitely many without taut foliation. Moreover, we show that the geometries do not determine the existence of taut foliations on non-integral Seifert fibered homology $3$-spheres.

This paper concerns the problem of existence of taut foliations among $3$-manifolds. Since the contribution of David Gabai, we know that closed $3$-manifolds with non-trivial second homology group admit a taut foliation. The essential part of this paper focuses on Seifert fibered homology $3$-spheres. The result is quite different if they are integral or rational but non-integral homology $3$-spheres. Concerning integral homology $3$-spheres, we can see that all but the $3$-sphere and the Poincaré $3$-sphere admit a taut foliation. Concerning non-integral homology $3$-spheres, we prove there are infinitely many which admit a taut foliation, and infinitely many without taut foliation. Moreover, we show that the geometries do not determine the existence of taut foliations on non-integral Seifert fibered homology $3$-spheres.

We introduce a flow of a spatial graph and see how invariants for spatial graphs and handlebody-links are derived from those for flowed spatial graphs. We define a new quandle (co)homology by introducing a subcomplex of the rack chain complex. Then we define quandle colorings and quandle cocycle invariants for spatial graphs and handlebody-links.

We define a family of formal Khovanov brackets of a colored link depending on two parameters. The isomorphism classes of these brackets are invariants of framed colored links. The Bar-Natan functors applied to these brackets produce Khovanov and Lee homology theories categorifying the colored Jones polynomial. Further, we study conditions under which framed colored link cobordisms induce chain transformations between our formal brackets. We conjecture that for special choice of parameters, Khovanov and Lee homology theories of colored links are functorial (up to sign). Finally, we extend the Rasmussen invariant to links and give examples where this invariant is a stronger obstruction to sliceness than the multivariable Levine--Tristram signature.

It is known that the Brandt--Lickorish--Millett--Ho polynomial $Q$ contains Casson's knot invariant. Whether there are (essentially) other Vassiliev knot invariants obtainable from $Q$ is an open problem. We show that this is not so up to degree $9$. We also give the (apparently) first examples of knots not distinguished by 2-cable HOMFLY polynomials which are not mutants. Our calculations provide evidence of a negative answer to the question whether Vassiliev knot invariants of degree $d \le 10$ are determined by the HOMFLY and Kauffman polynomials and their 2-cables, and for the existence of algebras of such Vassiliev invariants not isomorphic to the algebras of their weight systems.

Let $K$ be a knot in $S^3$. This paper is devoted to Dehn surgeries which create $3$-manifolds containing a closed non-orientable surface $\ch S$. We look at the slope ${p}/{q}$ of the surgery, the Euler characteristic $\chi(\ch S)$ of the surface and the intersection number $s$ between $\ch S$ and the core of the Dehn surgery. We prove that if $\chi(\hat S) \geq 15 - 3q$, then $s=1$. Furthermore, if $s=1$ then $q\leq 4-3\chi(\ch S)$ or $K$ is cabled and $q\leq 8-5\chi(\ch S)$. As consequence, if $K$ is hyperbolic and $\chi(\ch S)=-1$, then $q\leq 7$.

In this article, using 3-orbifolds singular along a knot with underlying space a homology sphere $Y^3$, the question of existence of non-trivial and non-abelian $\SU(2)$-representations of the fundamental group of cyclic branched covers of $Y^3$ along a knot is studied. We first use Floer Homology for knots to derive an existence result of non-abelian $\SU(2)$-representations of the fundamental group of knot complements, for knots with a non-vanishing equivariant signature. This provides information on the existence of non-trivial and non-abelian $\SU(2)$-representations of the fundamental group of cyclic branched covers. We illustrate the method with some examples of knots in $S^3$.

Let $\tilde M$ be a regular branched cover of a homology 3-sphere $M$ with deck group $G\cong \zt^d$ and branch set a trivalent graph $\Gamma$; such a cover is determined by a coloring of the edges of $\Gamma$ with elements of $G$. For each index-2 subgroup $H$ of $G$, $M_H = \tilde M/H$ is a double branched cover of $M$. Sakuma has proved that $H_1(\tilde M)$ is isomorphic, modulo 2-torsion, to $\bigoplus_H H_1(M_H)$, and has shown that $H_1(\tilde M)$ is determined up to isomorphism by $\bigoplus_H H_1(M_H)$ in certain cases; specifically, when $d=2$ and the coloring is such that the branch set of each cover $M_H\to M$ is connected, and when $d=3$ and $\Gamma$ is the complete graph $K_4$. We prove this for a larger class of coverings: when $d=2$, for any coloring of a connected graph; when $d=3$ or $4$, for an infinite class of colored graphs; and when $d=5$, for a single coloring of the Petersen graph.