The untwisting number of a knot (Q297541)

For a knot diagram, a crossing change is given by switching the under- and over-crossing arcs of a single crossing in the diagram. This process can be made independent of the diagram by thinking of it as \(\pm1\) Dehn surgery along the boundary of a disc that is pierced exactly twice by the knot, once in each direction. A basic concept in this paper is a \textit{generalized crossing change}, where the disc is pierced \(k\) times in each direction for some \(k\in\mathbb{N}\) (note that the usage of this phrase is different to that of some other authors). The unknotting number \(u(K)\) of a knot \(K\) is the minimum number of crossing changes needed to transform \(K\) into the unknot. Moving to generalized crossing changes gives the \textit{untwisting number} \(tu(K)\), which satisfies \(tu(K)\leq u(K)\). An intermediate family of invariants is created by restricting the number of times \(K\) intersects each disc used in the sequence of generalized crossing changes. The algebraic unknotting number, \(u_a(K)\), and the algebraic untwisting number, \(tu_a(K)\), are defined analogously by replacing the requirement of reaching the unknot with the weaker requirement of reaching a knot with the same Alexander polynomial as the unknot. In this paper the author proves that \(tu_a(K)=u_a(K)\), while in contrast \(u(K)-tu(K)\) may be arbitrarily large. Moreover, this gap persists even if a bound is placed on the intersection of \(K\) with the disc for each generalized crossing change, or if \(K\) is required to be topologically slice. The first result is proved by extending work of \textit{M. Borodzik} and \textit{S. Friedl} [Trans. Lond. Math. Soc. 1, No. 1, 57--84 (2014; Zbl 1322.57010)]. The difference between the unknotting number and the untwisting number is detected using the Ozsváth-Szabó \(\tau\) invariant of knots. The example families of knots are created using cables, connected sums, and Whitehead doubles.