Casson towers and filtrations of the smooth knot concordance group (Q2346734)

The author establishes a number of sufficient conditions for a knot's smooth concordance class to be \(n\)-solvable, see [\textit{T. D. Cochran} et al., Ann. Math. (2) 157, No. 2, 433--519 (2003; Zbl 1044.57001)]. In addition to the \(n\)-solvable filtration \(\mathfrak{F}_n\), the positive, \(\mathfrak{P}_n\), and negative, \(\mathfrak{N}_n\), filtrations defined in [\textit{T. D. Cochran} et al., Geom. Topol. 17, No. 4, 2103--2162 (2013; Zbl 1282.57006)] are also examined, and sufficient conditions for a class to lie in \(\mathfrak{P}_n\) or \(\mathfrak{N}_n\) given. One condition referred to above is that the knot bounds a Casson tower ([\textit{A. J. Casson}, ``Three lectures on new infinite constructions in 4-dimensional manifolds'', in: Guillou, Lucien (ed.); Marin, Alexis (ed.), A la recherche de la topologie perdue. Progress in Mathematics, Vol. 62. Birkhäuser (1986; Zbl 0597.57001)]) of height \(n+2\) in the ball \(B^4\). Should a knot bound such a tower, it is shown to bound an embedded symmetric grope of height \(n+2\) in the \(4\)-ball. Similar results are proven for a variant of Casson towers, which substitutes for a succession of handles, an algebraic condition in the fundamental group of the complement of the core of a tower of height 2. One consequence of the author's work is that either every knot bounding a Casson tower of height 3 is a topological slice knot, or \(\bigcap\mathfrak{F}_n\) contains a knot which is not a topological slice knot.