ON A THEOREM OF GOUSSAROV (Q4414974)

\textit{M. Goussarov} [Topology 37, 595-602 (1998; Zbl 0949.57004)] introduced the notion of interdependent modification on links and defined a finite type filtration on links using interdependent modifications, which turned out to be the same as the usual Vassiliev-Goussarov filtration, defined using crossing changes, up to degree change by a factor of 2. In the paper under review, the author first gives a simplified proof of the above mentioned result by Goussarov. It is also proved that if two knots in the \(3\)-sphere are related by a surgery on a rooted tree clasper with \(2k+1\) non-root leaves (in other words, a tree clasper with one disc-leaf and \(2k+1\) (possibly non-disc) leaves), then the difference of the two knots lies in the \(k\)th Vassiliev-Goussarov filtration. A corollary is that if two knots are related by a grope cobordism of class \(2k+1\), then the difference of these knots lies in the \(k\)th Vassiliev-Goussarov filtration.