\(\tau\)-invariants for knots in rational homology spheres (Q784240)

The author defines a collection of \(\tau\) invariants for any knot \(K\) in any rational homology sphere \(Y\), and uses them to give new bounds to the genus of a surface \(\Sigma\) in a negative definite four-manifold \(W\) with \(\partial \Sigma = K \subset Y = \partial W\). The original \(\tau\) invariant of [\textit{P. Ozsváth} and \textit{Z. Szabó}, Geom. Topol. 7, 615--639 (2003; Zbl 1037.57027)] is an integer associated to a knot in the three-sphere. For a knot \(K\) in a rational homology sphere \(Y\), the author defines rational numbers \(\tau_{\mathfrak{s}}(Y,K)\), indexed by the spin\(^c\) structures of \(Y\). Roughly speaking, given \(Y\), \(K\), and \(\mathfrak{s} \in \mathrm{Spin}^c(Y)\), \(\tau_{\mathfrak{s}}(Y,K)\) is obtained by looking at the minimum filtration level of the knot Floer complex (in the hat flavour) containing the generator of \(\widehat{HF}(Y, \mathfrak{s})\) which corresponds to the bottom element of the tower in \(HF^+(Y, \mathfrak{s})\). Since a knot in a rational homology sphere is typically not null-homologous, most of the author's technical work lies in extending several results in knot Floer homology to the case of rationally null-homologous knots. Along the way, she corrects a mistake in a lemma in [loc. cit.]. The author shows how \(\tau_{\mathfrak{s}}(Y, K)\) behaves under orientation reversal, mirror image, and connected sum (cf. Proposition 3.10), and she proves a genus bound for a surface \(\Sigma\) in a negative definite four-manifold \(W\) with \(\partial W = Y\) and \(\partial \Sigma = K\) (cf. Theorem 1). In the special case when \(W\) is a rational homology ball, her result implies that \(\tau_{\mathfrak{s}}(Y,K)\) provides a lower bound to the genus of \(\Sigma\) if the spin\(^c\) structure \(\mathfrak{s}\) extends over \(W\). In the last section, the author focuses on examples. For instance, she computes the \(\tau\) invariants explicitly for some essential knots in \(L(4,1)\), and using the genus bound she shows that one of them is not slice in a standard filling of \(L(4,1)\).