Stable concordance of knots in 3-manifolds (Q969647)

The intersection invariant \(\tau_0\), exactly Wall's intersection form, is defined for a proper immersion \(A\) of simply connected oriented surfaces in an oriented \(4\)-manifold. When \(\tau_0\) vanishes, \(\tau_1\) is defined by using Whitney towers. This is the intersection invariant \(\tau\) defined by \textit{R. Schneiderman} and \textit{P. Teichner} [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 1, 1--29 (2001; Zbl 0964.57022)]. In the paper under review, \(\tau_1\) is generalized for \(A\) with inessential annulus components. Then the invariant \(\tau_1\) is shown to be an obstruction to homotoping \(A\) to an embedding after stabilization by adding copies of \(S^2\times S^2\). Next, these invariants are applied to examine the stable concordance of knots and links in \(3\)-manifolds. Two links \(L\) and \(L'\) in a \(3\)-manifold \(M\) are said to be stably concordant if there exists a collection \(A\) of properly embedded immersed annuli in \(M\times I\), bounded by \(L\subset M\times \{0\}\) and \(L'\subset M\times \{1\}\), such that \(A\) can be stably embedded. A stably slice link is defined in the usual way. Note that if a link \(L\) in \(M\) is stably slice then each component of \(L\) is null-homotopic in \(M\). For any link \(L\) with null-homotopic components only, the concordance invariant \(\tau_0(L)\) is defined by using immersed disks in \(M\times I\) bounded by \(L\subset M\times \{0\}\). Moreover, if \(\tau_0(L)\) vanishes, then another concordance invariant \(\tau_1(L)\) is defined, which generalizes the Arf invariant and the mod 2 Sato-Levine invariant. This gives the characterization of stably slice links. That is, a link \(L\) is stably slice if and only if \(\tau_1(L)=0\). A classification of stable concordance of links of null-homotopic components is given in \(3\)-manifolds with torsion-free fundamental group, under a certain condition. Finally, for knots in the product of an orientable surface with the circle, again a classification of stable concordance is given.