Null-homologous twisting and the algebraic genus (Q2058920)

By a famous theorem of Freedman, if \(K\) is a knot in the 3-sphere with trivial Alexander polynomial \(\Delta_K=1\), then \(K\) is topologically slice, that is, it bounds in \(B_4\) a locally flat disk. This can be used to define an invariant of oriented links \(L\), called the algebraic genus, \(g_{\mathrm{alg}}(L)\). This is defined as the minimum of \(\{ g(F) -g(F') \}\), where \(F\) is any Seifert surface for \(L\) and \(F'\) is a subsurface of \(F\) such that \(\partial F'\) is a knot with \(\Delta_{K'}=1\). It is clear that this gives an upper bound for the topological 4-genus, \(g^{\mathrm{top}}_4(K) \leq g_{\mathrm{alg}}(K)\), for replacing \(F'\) with a locally flat disk in \(B^4\) gives a locally flat surface for \(L\). There are several different ways of defining the algebraic genus. This paper studies the behavior of the algebraic genus under the operation of twisting, and the main results shows that the algebraic genus changes at most by one under certain twisting operations. This is used to show that the algebraic genus of a satellite knot \(P(K)\) is bounded above by the algebraic genus of the pattern \(P(U)\) and the companion knot \(K\). This has also been proved, using different technique by \textit{P. Feller} et al. [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 22, No. 2, 709--738 (2022; Zbl 1498.57003)]. The main result is also used to give upper bounds for the algebraic genus and hence new upper bounds for the topological 4-genus of torus knots. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1459.37002].