Rational Witt classes of Pretzel knots (Q624265)

The algebraic concordance class of a knot is the image of its Blanchfield pairing in a Witt group of pairings on finitely generated torsion \(\mathbb Z[t,t^{-1}]\)-modules. This group may be identified with a group \(\mathcal{I}(\mathbb Q)\) of concordance classes of isometric structures \((V,b,T)\), where \(V\) is a finite dimensional \(\mathbb Q\)-vector space, \(b\) is a non-degenerate symmetric bilinear form on \(V\) and \(T\) is an isometry for \(b\). Forgetting the isometry gives a homomorphism to \(W(\mathbb Q)\), the Witt group of non-degenerate symmetric forms on \(\mathbb Q\)-vector spaces. The rational concordance class of a knot is the image of its Blanchfield pairing in \(W(\mathbb Q)\). The aim of this article is to show that the rational concordance class is useful and readily computable. As \(W(\mathbb Q)\cong\mathbb Z\oplus(\mathbb Z/4\mathbb Z)^\infty\oplus(\mathbb Z/2\mathbb Z)^\infty\), most of the information about Levine-Tristram signatures is lost in the transition to the rational concordance class, but there remain many torsion invariants. The rational concordance classes are computed for all pretzel knots, and it is shown that the pretzel knot \(K(5,-3,8)\) has non-trivial finite order in the algebraic concordance group but trivial rational concordance class.