Fibered knots with the same 0-surgery and the slice-ribbon conjecture (Q736706): Difference between revisions

The slice-ribbon conjecture asks: Is every slice knot also a ribbon knot. This problem has a long history and the main result of this paper starts with Akbulut and Kirby's conjecture on knot concordance [Stud. Adv. Math. 2(2), 35--473 (1997; Zbl 0888.57014)]: If 0-surgeries on two knots give the same 3-manifold, then the knots are concordant. \textit{C. Livingston} [Q. J. Math., Oxf. II. Ser. 34, 323--328 (1983; Zbl 0537.57003)] constructed a knot \(K\) such that it is not concordant to \(K_r\), where \(K_r\) is the knot obtained from \(K\) by reversing the orientation. Therefore Akbulut and Kirby's conjecture is false since 0-surgeries on \(K\) and \(K_r\) give the same 3-manifold. The conjecture was modified to the following: If 0-surgeries on two knots give the same 3-manifold, then the knots with relevant orientations are concordant. The main result of the paper is the following: If the slice-ribbon conjecture is true, then the modified Akbulut and Kirby's conjecture is also false. The authors establish this by construction of an explicit example of a connected sum of two knots \(K_0\) and \(K_1\) where 0-surgeries give the same 3-manifold. They then prove that \(K_0\#\bar{K_1}\) is not ribbon, where \(\bar{K_1}\) is the mirror image of \(K_1\). If the slice ribbon conjecture is true then \(K_0\#\bar{K_1}\) is not slice and \(K_0\) and \(K_1\) are not concordant. The authors also give a fibered potential counterexample to the slice-ribbon conjecture.