Embedded surfaces with infinite cyclic knot group (Q6039941)

For a locally flat, embedded, compact, orientable surface in a compact, oriented, simply connected topological 4-manifold, the knot group is the fundamental group of the complement of the surface. The authors study such surfaces with knot group \(\mathbb{Z}\). The main results are as follows. Any two locally flat, embedded, closed, orientable and genus \(g \neq 1,2\) surfaces \(\Sigma_0\), \(\Sigma_1\) in \(S^4\) with \(\pi_1(S^4\backslash \Sigma_i) \cong \mathbb{Z}\) \((i=0,1)\) are topologically ambiently isotopic. For a knot \(K\) in \(S^3\) with trivial Alexander polynomial, any two locally flat, embedded, compact, orientable and genus \(g \neq 1,2\) surfaces \(\Sigma_0\), \(\Sigma_1\) in \(D^4\) with boundary \(K\) and \(\pi_1(D^4\backslash \Sigma_i) \cong \mathbb{Z}\) \((i=0,1)\) are topologically ambiently isotopic relative to the boundary. Further, the authors show that in a closed, simply connected 4-manifold, 1-twist rim surgery on a locally flat, embedded, orientable surface with knot group \(\mathbb{Z}\) yields a topologically ambiently isotopic surface. \newline Concerning the first result, there are results on the unknotting conjecture due to Freedman and Quinn, and Hillman and Kawauchi. The second result is a generalization of the result for the genus-zero case due to the authors. The authors treat the union of Hermitian forms over \(\Lambda=\mathbb{Z}[t^{\pm 1}]\), using linking forms. Then they express the intersection form of a closed 4-manifold obtained as the union of two compact 4-manifolds along their common boundary, in terms of this algebraic union. Further, they discuss the equivariant intersection forms for surfaces with knot group \(\mathbb{Z}\).