Whitney towers, gropes and Casson-Gordon style invariants of links (Q2351938)

In general it is a hard problem to decide whether or not two links are concordant. In this paper the author proves a conjecture of \textit{S. Friedl} and \textit{M. Powell} [Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 156, No. 3, 425--459 (2014; Zbl 1291.57017)] about concordance of 2-component links with linking number one. The main theorem is the following: \textbf{Theorem}. Suppose that \(L\) is a 2-component link with linking number one and \(H\) is the Hopf link. If \(L\) and \(H\) are height-3.5 Whitney tower (or grope) concordant, then the Friedl-Powell invariant \(\tau(L,\chi)\) vanishes for \(L\). In addition the author extends theorems of \textit{J. Hillman} [Algebraic invariants of links. 2nd ed. Series on Knots and Everything 52. Singapore: World Scientific (2012; Zbl 1253.57001)] and \textit{A. Kawauchi} [Osaka J. Math. 15, 151--159 (1978; Zbl 0401.57013)] in terms of symmetric Whitney tower grope concordance.