A Fox-Milnor theorem for the Alexander polynomial of knotted 2-spheres in \(S^4\) (Q2004921)

A 2-knot is the image of a smooth embedding of a 2-sphere into \(S^4\). A 2-knot is ribbon if it bounds a 3-ball with only special singularities called ribbon singularities. It is known that for any polynomial \(f(t) \in \mathbb{Z}[t^{\pm 1}]\) such that \(f(1)=1\), there is a ribbon 2-knot whose Alexander polynomial is \(f(t)\). In this paper, the authors introduce the notion of an \(A\)-ribbon 2-knot, which is defined as a 2-knot bounding a 3-ball whose singularities consist only of ``annular ribbon (\(A\)-ribbon)'' singularities. In particular, ribbon 2-knots are \(A\)-ribbon. For \(A\)-ribbon 2-knots, the authors discuss the construction of Seifert hypersurfaces and compute Seifert matrices. And they define a condition called the linkings condition, and show the main result as follows. The Alexander polynomial of an \(A\)-ribbon 2-knot satisfying the linkings condition factorizes as \(f(t)f(t^{-1})\) for some polynomial \(f(t)\).