An obstruction of Gordian distance one and cosmetic crossings for genus one knots (Q2075834)

Crossing change is an important operation on a knot. The minimal number of crossing changes between two knots needed to transform one into the other is called the Gordian distance of the two knots. In particular, when one knot is the unknot, the Gordian distance is the unknotting number of the other knot. A cosmetic crossing is a non-nugatory crossing such that a crossing change at the crossing yields the same knot. The cosmetic crossing conjecture asserts there is no such crossing. In fact, there is a similar conjecture for generalized cosmetic crossings. In this paper, the author studies the 0th coefficient of the HOMFLY polynomials of two genus one knots with Gordian distance one and gives an obstruction for Gordian distance one. Then as an application, he gives a constraint for a genus one knot to admit a generalized cosmetic crossing and uses it to prove that genus one pretzel knots have no generalized cosmetic crossings.