On slope genera of knotted tori in 4-space (Q1951186)

For a classical knot in the 3-sphere \(S^3\), one of the most basic numerical invariants is its genus, introduced by H. Seifert. In this paper, the authors introduce an analogous notion of the genus for any slope of a knotted torus in the 4-sphere \(S^4\). A knotted torus is a locally flat embedding \(K: T^2 \hookrightarrow S^4\) of the torus \(T^2\) into \(S^4\). We use the same notation \(K\) for the image of \(K\). For a slope \(c \subset K\), the genus \(g_K(c)\) of \(c\) is the smallest possible genus of all the locally flat, properly embedded, orientable, compact subsurfaces \(F\) of the exterior \(X_K\) of \(K\) such that \(\partial F=c\times \mathrm{pt} \subset \partial X_K\), where we take the canonical splitting \(\partial X_K =T^2 \times S^1\). The genus of a slope is an invariant under extendable automorphisms, i.e. automorphisms of \(T^2\) which can be extended over \(S^4\). The subgroup \(\mathcal{E}_K\) of the mapping class group of \(T^2\) generated by extendable automorphisms is called the extendable subgroup. The aim of this paper is to understand the extendable subgroup with the aid of the slope genera. We remark that the extendable subgroup \(\mathcal{E}_K\) has been computed for the so-called spun \(T^2\)-knots and twisted spun \(T^2\)-knots by \textit{S. Hirose} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 119, No. 3, 1009--1018 (1993; Zbl 0806.57011)], and \(\mathcal{E}_K\) is a proper subgroup of index at least three for any knotted torus \(K\); see \textit{F. Ding} et al., [Math. Res. Lett. 19, No. 2, 345--357 (2012; Zbl 1297.57052)]. Since the genus \(g_K(c)\) of a slope \(c\) of a knotted torus \(K\) is usually hard to capture, the authors introduce two weaker notions of the singular genus \(g_K^*(c)\) of \(c\) and the seminorm on \(H_1(T^2)\) induced from \(K\). The singular genus \(g_K^*(c)\) is the smallest possible genus of all the compact orientable surfaces \(F\) with connected nonempty boundary such that there is a continuous map \(F \to X_K\) sending \(\partial F\) homeomorphically onto \(c \times \mathrm{pt}\). The induced seminorm is an analogue to the (singular) Thurston seminorm in the classical context. Concerning the seminorms associated with satellite knotted tori, the authors show an inequality analogous to the Schubert inequality in classical knot theory. As an application, they introduce the notion of a braid satellite which is a satellite knotted torus constructed from a classical braid, and construct examples of knotted tori with finite extendable subgroups. Further, they exhibit examples where the singular genus is positive for some slope with vanishing seminorm. This implies that the singular genus is strictly stronger than the seminorm as an invariant associated to slopes. The paper is closed by proposing several further questions.