On the slice genus of quasipositive knots in indefinite 4-manifolds (Q6111229)

The article under review proves a relative adjunction inequality for surfaces with boundary in \(4\)-manifolds of the form \(X_0 = X\setminus \mathring{B}\), where \(X\) belongs to a certain class of closed indefinite \(4\)-manifolds and the boundary of the surface is a quasipositive link. The results are inspired by analogous bounds proved for knots in definite \(4\)-manifolds in [\textit{P. Oszváth} and \textit{Z. Szabó}, Geom. Topol. 7, 615--639 (2003; Zbl 1037.57027)] and for knots in certain indefinite \(4\)-manifolds in [\textit{C. Manolescu} et al., ``Relative genus bounds in indefinite four-manifolds'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2012.12270}]. To be more precise, given a \(\text{spin}^c\)-structure \(\mathfrak{s}\) on a compact, oriented smooth \(4\)-manifold \(X\) with \(b_+(X)>1\), let us denote by \(SW(X,\mathfrak{s})\in\mathbb{Z}\) the Seiberg-Witten invariant of \((X,\mathfrak{s})\). Also, for a link \(L\subset S^3\), let \(\chi _4(L)\) be the maximal Euler characteristic of any smooth, properly embedded, oriented surface in \(B^4\) with boundary \(L\) and having no closed components. The main result is then as follows. Theorem: Let \(X\) be a smooth, closed, oriented \(4\)-manifold with \(b_1(X)=0\) and \(b_+(X) = 3\) (mod \(4\)). Suppose that there is a \(\text{spin}^c\)-structure \(\mathfrak{s}\) with \(SW(X,\mathfrak{s})=1\) (mod \(2\)). Let \(X_0\) be the \(4\)-manifold with boundary \(S^3\) obtained by removing an open ball from \(X\) and let \(L\subset S^3\) be a quasipositive link. Then for any connected, smooth, oriented, properly embedded surface \(\Sigma\subset X_0\) with boundary \(L\), we have \(-\chi(\Sigma) \geq [\Sigma]^2 + |\langle[\Sigma], c_1(\mathfrak{s})\rangle|-\chi_4(L)\). Various corollaries of this inequality are then deduced, for instance concerning \(H\)-sliceness or the adjunction inequality for closed surfaces, and the sharpness of the bound is partially studied. The proof uses the construction of an appropriate surface in \(\mathbb{CP}^2\setminus \mathring{B}\) with boundary the given quasipositive link \(L\), and an adjunction inequality from the Bauer-Furuta invariants.