Rational Whitney tower filtration of links (Q1709761)

A \(n\)-component link \(L \subset S^3\) is called topologically slice if it bounds a union of \(n\) locally flat discs in the 4-ball \(D^4\). Since the work of Cochran, Orr and Teichner [\textit{T. D. Cochran}, \textit{K. E. Orr} and \textit{P. Teichner}, Ann. Math. (2) 157, No. 2, 433--519 (2003; Zbl 1044.57001)], topological link concordance has been increasingly studied using the notion of (symmetric) Whitney towers. Roughly speaking, a Whitney tower is constructed by attaching layers of immersed Whitney disks to an immersed surface cobounding \(L\); its order is related to the number of layers of Whitney disks. In a recent sequence of papers, (see [\textit{J. Conant}, \textit{R. Schneiderman} and \textit{P. Teichner}, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 108, No. 20, 8131--8138 (2011; Zbl 1256.57017)] for a summary), Conant, Schneiderman and Teichner describe necessary and sufficient conditions for a link to bound an (asymmetric) Whitney tower of order \(n\) in \(D^4\). These conditions involve the vanishing of the Milnor invariants, higher-order Sato-Levine invariants and higher-order Arf invariants. These latter invariants are generalizations of the classical Arf invariant of a knot; it is an open question whether or not they are trivial. The paper under review is concerned with links \(L \subset S^3\) which bound order \(n\) Whitney towers in rational homology 4-balls. As described in Theorem A and Theorem 5.1, the resulting classification also involves the aforementioned Milnor and higher-order Sato-Levine invariants. As a consequence of these results, in Theorem C, the author provides a geometric characterization of the vanishing of the Milnor invariants in terms of Whitney towers; see [\textit{K. Igusa} and \textit{K. E. Orr}, Topology 40, No. 6, 1125--1166 (2001; Zbl 1002.57012)] and [\textit{J. Conant}, \textit{R. Schneiderman} and \textit{P. Teichner}, J. Topol. 7, No. 1, 187--224 (2014; Zbl 1312.57007)] for related results. In Theorem D, the author shows that the higher order Arf invariants measure the (potential) difference between bounding a Whitney tower in \(D^4\) and in a rational homology ball.