Cobordism of disk knots (Q926421)

This is a non-trivial analogue of higher-dimensional knot cobordism for proper PL locally flat \((n-2)\)-disks in the \(n\)-disk, in the spirit of J. Levine's work. For a non-trivial theory, cobordism of these disk knots has to be taken relative to the boundary. In the even-dimensional case, any two disk knots with isotopic boundary sphere knots are cobordant in that sense. Turning to odd dimensions, given any two disk knots with the same boundary knot, these are cobordant if and only if their Seifert matrices are (algebraically) cobordant, and each one is cobordant to the knot sum of the other one with a sphere knot of the same dimension. Moreover, any cobordism class contains a simple disk knot. For a simple disk knot, the homology of the infinite cyclic covering of the exterior of the boundary sphere knot and the Farber-Levine torsion pairing on its torsion, up to isometry are determined by the isometry class of the Blanchfield pairing on the homology of the infinite cyclic covering of the disk knot exterior, as well as by any of its Seifert matrices. Finally, a disk knot determines a Seifert matrix up to rational (generally not integer) \(S\)-equivalence.