Ribbonness of a stable-ribbon surface-link. I: A stably trivial surface-link (Q820666)

A surface-link is a closed oriented surface smoothly embedded in \(\mathbb{R}^4\), and when it is connected, it is called a surface-knot. In particular, the disjoint union of embedded 2-spheres is called a 2-link, and an embedded torus is called a torus-knot. A surface-link is trivial if it bounds the union of mutually disjoint handlebodies smoothly embedded in \(\mathbb{R}^4\). A stabilization of a surface-link \(F\) is a connected sum of \(F\) and a system of trivial torus-knots. A surface-link is stably trivial if its stabilization is a trivial surface-link. A handle-irreducible summand of a surface-link \(F\) is a surface-link with minimal total genus such that its stabilization is equivalent to \(F\). \newline The main result is that any handle-irreducible summand of every stably trivial surface-link is a trivial 2-link. This implies that every stably trivial surface-link is a trivial surface-link. By a result due to Hosokawa and the author [\textit{F. Hosokawa} and \textit{A. Kawauchi}, Osaka J. Math. 16, 233--248 (1979; Zbl 0404.57020)], for a surface-knot \(F\) such that the fundamental group \(\pi_1(\mathbb{R}^4 \backslash F)\) is an infinite cyclic group, \(F\) is a stably trivial surface-knot. Hence the main result implies that a surface-knot \(F\) is trivial if and only if the fundamental group \(\pi_1(\mathbb{R}^4 \backslash F)\) is an infinite cyclic group, and this answers affirmatively the Unknotting Conjecture for \(n=2\) in the smooth category and it changes to the Unknotting Theorem: A smooth \(S^n\)-knot \(K^n\) in \(S^{n+2}\) is unknotted if and only if the complement \(S^{n+2} \backslash K^n\) is homotopy equivalent to \(S^1\) for every \(n \geq 1\). \newline The main result is shown using surgery of a surface-link on an orthogonal 2-handle pair, where an orthogonal 2-handle pair on a surface-link \(F\) is a pair of 2-handles \((D \times I, D' \times I)\) on \(F\) satisfying a certain condition, described as the condition that \(\partial D \times I\) and \(\partial D' \times I\) meet orthogonally on \(F\). The author shows that the following are equivalent: (1) Every stably trivial surface-link is a trivial surface-link, and (2) Any trivial surface-link has only a unique orthogonal 2-handle pair. And the author shows that any surface-link, in particular, any trivial surface-link, has only a unique orthogonal 2-handle pair.