Seifert hypersurfaces of 2-knots and Chern-Simons functional (Q2125360)

This paper extends ideas that the author introduced in [\textit{Y. Nozaki} et al., ``Filtered instanton Floer homology and the homology cobordism group'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1905.04001}] and ideas due to Daemi to derive a number of very interesting results about 2-knots. If \(X\) is a closed \(4\)-manifold, any \(c\in H_3(X)\) is dual to a class in \(H^1(X)\) and hence gives a \(\mathbb{Z}\) cover \(\tilde{X}^c\to X\) and \(\mathbb{Z}_j\) covers \(X_{j,c}\to X\). Given a flat SU\((2)\)-connection, \(a\), on \(X\), Taniguchi defines a Chern-Simons invariant \(cs_{X,c}(a)\) as the integral of the second Chern class density for a connection equal to the pull-pack of \(a\) on the left end of \(\tilde{X}^c\) and trivial on the right end. He also defines similar invariants \(cs_{X,c}^j(a)\) using the other covers. To apply these Chern-Simons invariants to \(2\)-knots in this paper, Taniguchi considers the manifold obtained by surgery on the knot. This manifold is a homology \(S^1\times S^3\), so orientations give a natural class \(c\in H_3\). Taniguchi proves that the Chern-Simons invariant of any ribbon \(2\)-knot is trivial, that the values of Chern-Simons invariants of the connected sum of a pair of \(2\)-knots contain the sums of the values of the Chern-Simons invariants of the factors. He computes the Chern-Simons invariants for twist spins of torus knots, the 2-twisted spin of \((p,q,r)\) Montesinos knots and the \(2\)-twist spin of many \(2\)-bridge knots. He also computes the Chern-Simons invariants for a few extra \(2\)-knots. As a primary application of these invariants he proves that the values of the Chern-Simons invariants of any smooth (capped off) homology sphere Seifert hypersurface of a \(2\)-knot are contained in the values of the Chern-Simons invariants of the \(2\)-knot. This means, for example the punctured Poincaré homology sphere is not a smooth Seifert hypersurface of any ribbon \(2\)-knot. (It is a locally-flat Seifert hypersurface of the unknot.) A very interesting development in Floer theory has been to define invariants based on the values of the Chern-Simons invariants of generators of the Floer groups. The first such invariant was the \(\Gamma\)-invariant defined by \textit{D. R. Auckly} [Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 115, No. 2, 229--251 (1994; Zbl 0854.57013)]. Sato, Nozaki, and Taniguchi defined a similar invariant \(r\) in [\textit{S. Kamada}, Surface-knots in 4-space. An introduction. Singapore: Springer (2017; Zbl 1362.57001)]. In this paper Taniguchi defines new invariants \(\ell_Y^s\) and \(\ell_Y^k\) in a similar spirit. The main theorem of this paper extends the result about Chern-Simons invariants of Seifert hypersurfaces to the \(r\), \(\Gamma\), and \(\ell\) invariants. The paper contains a number of other interesting results. It studies homology spheres that embed into definite \(4\)-manifolds and obtains restrictions on the values of \(r\), \(\Gamma\), and \(\ell\). It shows that the representations in a certain spherical component of the representation space of the fundamental group of \(\Sigma(2,3,5,7)\) all extend to representations of the fundamental group of any definite \(4\)-manifold smoothly containing \(\Sigma(2,3,5,7)\). Taniguchi also addresses fixed points of the character variety under the action of orientation preserving diffeomorphisms of the homology sphere.