On the genus defect of positive braid knots (Q1985999)

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.