On the genus defect of positive braid knots (Q1985999)

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On the genus defect of positive braid knots
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    On the genus defect of positive braid knots (English)
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    7 April 2020
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    The genus \(g(K)\) of a knot \(K\) is bounded from below by its topological 4-genus \(g_4^{\text{top}}(K)\). This paper studies the genus defect \(g(K)-g_4^{\text{top}}(K)\) of prime positive braid knots and finds that it is bounded from below by \(\left\lfloor\frac{1}{16}b\right\rfloor\), where \(b\) is the positive braid index of \(K\). The author also gives a characterisation of the prime positive braid knots \(K\) whose genus defect is at most a given number \(c\) in terms of surface minors of the fiber surface of \(K\). An embedded surface \(\Sigma_1\) in the 3-sphere \(S^3\) is a minor of another embedded surface \(\Sigma_2\subset S^3\) if \(\Sigma_1\) can be isotoped in \(S^3\) to an incompressible subsurface of \(\Sigma_2\). It turns out that \(K\) has a genus defect of at most \(c\) if and only if the unique genus-minimising Seifert surface of \(K\) does not have any of a finite number of forbidden minors.
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    four-genus
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    genus defect
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    positive braid knot
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    surface minor
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    well-quasiorder
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