Tye Lidman : Cosmetic surgeries and Chern-Simons invariants
- Geometry and Topology ( 0 Views )Dehn surgery is a fundamental construction in topology where one removes a neighborhood of a knot from the three-sphere and reglues to obtain a new three-manifold. The Cosmetic Surgery Conjecture predicts two different surgeries on the same knot always gives different three-manifolds. We discuss how gauge theory, in particular, the Chern-Simons functional, can help approach this problem. This technique allows us to solve the conjecture in essentially all but one case. This is joint work with Ali Daemi and Mike Miller Eismeier.