On the upsilon invariant and satellite knots (Q2312843)

For a fixed pattern \(P\), a mapping sending a knot \(K\) to the satellite knot \(P(K)\) with companion \(K\) yields a well defined function on the smooth knot concordance group. In particular, if this satellite operator sends the unknot to a topologically slice knot, then the operator restricts on the subgroup \(\mathcal{T}\) consisting of smooth concordance classes of topologically slice knots. The paper under review examines satellite operators with large winding number, winding number one and winding number zero. The main tool is the upsilon invariant introduced by \textit{P. S. Ozsváth} et al. [Adv. Math. 315, 366--426 (2017; Zbl 1383.57020)]. It is stronger than the familiar \(\tau\)-invariant, and is known to be suitable for the study of linear independence of knot concordance classes. Among various results on linear independence, the main result claims that for any knot \(K\) with \(\tau(K)=g_c(K)=1\), where \(g_c(K)\) is the concordance genus, the infinite family of \((2^i,1)\)-cables of \(K\), \(i\ge 0\), forms a basis of an infinite rank summand of the smooth knot concordance group. In particular, this result is applicable to the positive Whitehead double of any knot with positive \(\tau\)-invariant. Such a family gives a basis for an infinite rank summand of the subgroup \(\mathcal{T}\) of topologically slice knots. Also, by using the Mazur pattern and the pattern found by \textit{K. Yasui} [``Corks, exotic 4-manifolds and knot concordance'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1505.02551}], which yields counterexamples to a conjecture of \textit{S. Akbulut} and \textit{R. Kirby} [Mich. Math. J. 26, 259--284 (1979; Zbl 0443.57011)], the authors give an infinite family of pairs \(\{(K_i,J_i)\}\) of topologically slice knots such that \(\{K_i\}\) and \(\{J_i\}\) are each linearly independent, each pair \(\{K_i,J_i\}\) is linearly independent, and the zero-surgeries are homeomorphic for each \(i\). And, the Mazur pattern yields an infinite family of topologically slice knots \(\{K_n\}\) such that for any nonnegative \(r\), the iterates of the Mazur satellite operator \(\{M^r(K_n)\}\) generate an infinite rank subgroup of \(\mathcal{T}\).