Counterexamples to Kauffman's conjectures on slice knots

Abstract: In 1982 Louis Kauffman conjectured that if a knot in the 3-sphere is a slice knot then on any Seifert surface for that knot there exists a homologically essential simple closed curve of self-linking zero which is itself a slice knot, or at least has Arf invariant zero. Since that time, considerable evidence has been amassed in support of this conjecture. In particular, many invariants that obstruct a knot from being a slice knot have been explictly expressed in terms of invariants of such curves on the Seifert surface. We give counterexamples to Kauffman's conjecture, that is, we exhibit (smoothly) slice knots that admit (unique minimal genus) Seifert surfaces on which every homologically essential simple closed curve of self-linking zero has non-zero Arf invariant and non-zero signatures.

Review text

This paper disproves some long-standing conjectures about slice knots, surveying prior partial results and introducing a novel approach through ``excellent Seifert surfaces. Among other things, the Slice-Ribbon Conjecture is shown to be equivalent to the existence of such surfaces for slice knots, and to imply a ``Stable Kauffman Conjecture formulated by the authors, who promise a future paper suggesting how Levine's half century old strategy for dealing with slice knots might be repaired. Reviewer's remark: conjectures invite counterexamples; for theorems, they are less welcome, though more important.

Recommendations

Cites work

Cited in

(21)

This page was built for publication: Counterexamples to Kauffman's conjectures on slice knots

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2359929)