A construction of slice knots via annulus twists (Q333266)

This paper is concerned with the Ribbon Conjecture (that slice knots are ribbon knots) and handlebody structures for the 4-ball \(B^4\). It is shown first that if \(K\) is a slice knot which has an annulus presentation (i.e., may be obtained by band-summing the boundary components of an annulus embedded in \(S^3\) with unknotted centre line and one full twist) then the knots \(K_n\) obtained by \(n\)-fold annulus twists on \(K\) are all ribbon knots. (The notion of annulus twist was used by \textit{J. K. Osoinach jun.} to give examples of 3-manifolds obtainable by 0-framed surgery on infinitely many knots [Topology 45, No. 4, 725--733 (2006; Zbl 1097.57018)]). The argument involves manipulating handle diagrams for \(B^4\) via the Kirby calculus. Two conjectures are proposed in the final section. Conjecture 6.1 is suggested as a step towards the Ribbon Conjecture: Let \(HD\) be a handle diagram of \(B^4\) without \(3\)-handles. Then the belt sphere of any 2-handle of \(HD\) is a ribbon knot. Conjecture 6.2 suggests that certain specific handle diagrams cannot be deformed to the empty diagram without introducing 3-handles.