Smooth slice boundary links whose derivative links have nonvanishing Milnor invariants (Q2512543)

The 4-dimensional TOP surgery conjecture is closely related to the assertion that certain families of boundary links are TOP slice. One approach to showing that an \(n\)-component boundary link with a given \(n\)-component Seifert surface is slice is to represent a metabolizer for the associated Seifert form by disjoint curves on the Seifert surface. If the ``derived link'' formed by these curves is slice then so is the original link. However, this is not a necesary condition. The Whitehead double \(Wh_3\) of the Whitehead link \(Wh\) is TOP slice [\textit{M. H. Freedman}, Invent. Math. 94, No. 1, 175--182 (1988; Zbl 0678.57002)], but it has \(Wh\) as a derivative, and \(Wh\) is not slice, since it has a non-zero Milnor invariant. The main result of this paper is the construction of a 3-component boundary link which is smoothly slice, and bounds three disjoint punctured tori in \(S^3\), but such that the derivative links on this Seifert surface representing any metabolizer of the Seifert form have nonzero Milnor invariants. The example is in fact also a ribbon link. In passing it is shown that every ribbon boundary link is ``boundary ribbon'', and hence boundary slice. (In the abstract, ``ribbon link'' should read ``ribbon boundary link''.)