Ribbon knots, cabling, and handle decompositions (Q2166376)

The \textit{fusion number} \(F(K)\) of a ribbon knot \(K\) is the minimal number of 1-handles needed to construct a ribbon disk. Any ribbon knot is \textit{strongly homotopy ribbon}, which means the complement of the ribbon disk it bounds in \(B^4\) consists of only 0-, 1- and 2-handles. The authors define the \textit{strong homotopy fusion number of a ribbon knot} \(F_{sh}(K)\) to be the minimal number of 2-handles needed in a ribbon disk complement. For any ribbon knot \(K\), the \((p,1)\)-cable \(K_{p,1}\) is also a ribbon knot. So is any iterated cable \(K_{p_1 ,1;\dots;p_n,1}\). Firstly, the authors prove \(F_{sh}(K_{p,1}) \le F(K)\) using Kirby diagrams, and \(F(K_{p,1}) \le p F(K)\) by simple observation. The main result in this paper is that for any ribbon knot \(K\) with fusion number 1, \(F(K_{p,1}) =p\). Similar results hold for \(K_{p_1 ,1;\dots;p_n,1}\). The mail tools are some recent results in knot Floer homology. The authors prove that for a slice knot \(K\) with the torsion order \(\mathrm{Ord}_U (K)\) of \(HKF^- (K)\) equal to 1, the knot Floer complex \(CFK_{F(U,V)} (K)\) splits and has a unit box. They also use the cabling formula in [\textit{J. Hanselman} and \textit{L. Watson}, ``Cabling in terms of immersed curves'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1908.04397}] in bordered Floer homology to show that if \(CFK_{F(U,V)} (K)\) has a unit box, then \(\mathrm{Ord}_U (K_{p_1 ,1;\dots;p_n,1})\ge p_1 \cdots p_n\). Then as [\textit{A. Juhász} et al., J. Topol. 13, No. 4, 1701--1724 (2020; Zbl 1477.57015)] proved \(\mathrm{Ord}_U (K)\) lower bounds \(F(K)\), they obtain their theorem.