Primary decompositions of knot concordance

MaRDI QIDQ2045869zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Charles Livingston

Publication date 16 August 2021

Published in The New York Journal of Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.08280, http://nyjm.albany.edu/j/2021/27-29.html

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zbMATH Keywords

knot concordanceprimary decompositionstopologically slice knots

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Knot theory (57K10) Cobordism and concordance in topological manifolds (57N70)

Abstract: For all n > 0 there is a homomorphism from the smooth concordance group of knots in dimension 2n + 1 to an algebraically defined group called the rational algebraic concordance group. This algebraic concordance group splits as a direct sum of groups indexed by polynomials. For n > 1 the homomorphism is injective. This leads to what is called a primary decomposition theorem for knot concordance. In the classical dimension, the kernel of this homomorphism includes the smooth concordance group of topologically slice knots, and Jae Choon Cha has begun studying possible primary decompositions of this subgroup. Here we will show that primary decompositions of a strong type cannot exist. In more detail, it is shown that there exists a topologically slice knot K for which there is a factorization of its Alexander polynomial as f(t)g(t), where f(t) and g(t) are relatively prime and each is the Alexander polynomial of a topologically slice knot, but K is not smoothly concordant to any connected sum of a pair of knots with Alexander polynomials f(t) and g(t).

Review text

A central problem in three-dimensional knot concordance theory in the smooth category consists of understanding \(\mathcal{T}\), the concordance group of topologically slice knots. In this paper, the author shows that primary decompositions of \(\mathcal{T}\) of a strong type cannot exist. The main goal of this paper is to provide a counterexample to a splitting property related to the surjectivity of \(\Phi\), considered by Cha under the name strong existence [\textit{J. C. Cha}, Forum Math. Sigma 9, Paper No e57, 37 p. (2021; Zbl 1473.57006)]. The main theorems are listed as follows. \textbf{Theorem 1.1} There exists a set of three polynomials , \(\mathcal{P}_0=\{f_1,f_2,f_3\}\subset \mathcal{P}\), such that the natural homomorphism \[ \mathcal{T}_{\Delta}^{f_1}\oplus \mathcal{T}_{\Delta}^{f_2}\oplus\mathcal{T}_{\Delta}^{f_3}\rightarrow \mathcal{T}_{\Delta}^{\mathcal{P}_0} \] is not surjective. \textbf{Theorem 1.2} There exist Alexander polynomials \(f_1(t)\) and \(f_2(t)\) having no common factors and a topologically slice knot \(K\) with \(\Delta_K(t)=f_1(t)^2f_2(t)^2\) such that \(K\) is not concordant to any connected sum of knots \(K_1\sharp K_2\) where \(\Delta_{K_i}(t)=f_i(t)^{n_i}\) and \(n_1,n_2\in \mathbb{Z}\). It follows that \(K\) is a topologically slice knot that is not smoothly concordant to a knot with Alexander polynomial one. The first examples of such knots were described in [\textit{M. Hedden} et al., Adv. Math. 231, No. 2, 913--939 (2012; Zbl 1254.57008)]. In the appendix of this paper, the author also describes the computation of the \(d\)-invariants for the 2-fold branched cover of \(S^3\) branched over \(K_{15}\).

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Cited in

(5)

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5942299 (Why is no real title available?)
• Polynomial splittings of correction terms and doubly slice knots
• Primary decomposition in the smooth concordance group of topologically slice knots
• Primary decomposition of knot concordance and von Neumann rho-invariants
• Primary decomposition and the fractal nature of knot concordance

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