Immersed disks, slicing numbers and concordance unknotting numbers

DOI10.4310/CAG.2016.V24.N5.A8MaRDI QIDQ2396644zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Brendan Owens, Sašo Strle

Publication date 24 May 2017

Published in Communications in Analysis and Geometry (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.6702

zbMATH Keywords

\(4\)-ball crossing number\(d\)-invariantconcordance unknotting numberHeegaard Floer homologyslicing numberunknotting number

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Abstract: We study three knot invariants related to smoothly immersed disks in the four-ball. These are the four-ball crossing number, which is the minimal number of normal double points of such a disk bounded by a given knot; the slicing number, which is the minimal number of crossing changes to a slice knot; and the concordance unknotting number, which is the minimal unknotting number in a smooth concordance class. Using Heegaard Floer homology we obtain bounds that can be used to determine two of these invariants for all prime knots with crossing number ten or less, and to determine the concordance unknotting number for all but thirteen of these knots. As a further application we obtain some new bounds on Gordian distance between torus knots. We also give a strengthened version of Ozsvath and Szabo's obstruction to unknotting number one.

Review text

The paper under review examines three knot invariants derived from immersed disks in the \(4\)-ball. For a knot \(K\) in the \(3\)-sphere, there always exists an immersed disk in the \(4\)-ball bounded by \(K\) which has only transverse double points in its interior. The \(4\)-ball crossing number is the minimal number of double points in any such immersed disk. This is clearly a concordance invariant. The slicing number of \(K\) is the minimal number of crossing changes necessary to change \(K\) into a slice knot. Since a slice knot bounds an embedded disk in the \(4\)-ball, the slicing number gives an upper bound for the \(4\)-ball crossing number. It is also well known that the \(4\)-ball crossing number gives an upper bound for the \(4\)-ball genus, and the latter is at least half of the signature of the knot. Finally, the concordance unknotting number of \(K\) is defined to be the minimal unknotting number of any knot concordant to \(K\). Hence the (usual) unknotting number of \(K\) gives an upper bound for the concordance unknotting number. In this paper, the \(4\)-ball crossing number and the slicing number are determined for all prime knots with at most 10 crossings, and the concordance unknotting number is determined for all but 3 knots up to 9 crossings and all but 10 knots with 10 crossings. As another application, the Gordian distance and the concordance Gordian distance are examined for some torus knots. The central argument is the analysis of the \(4\)-manifold bounded by the double branched cover of a knot and its intersection pairing, which involves the Heegaard Floer \(d\)-invariant of the double branched cover.

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Cited in

(24)

• Topologically slice knots that are not smoothly slice in any definite 4-manifold
• The nonorientable 4-genus for knots with 8 or 9 crossings
• The slicing number of a knot
• Signature invariants related to the unknotting number
• Untwisting information from Heegaard Floer homology
• A note on cobordisms of algebraic knots
• Bounds on alternating surgery slopes
• Surgeries, sharp 4-manifolds and the Alexander polynomial
• On slicing invariants of knots
• Four-genus and four-dimensional clasp number of a knot
• The \(\Upsilon\) function of \(L\)-space knots is a Legendre transform
• The four-genus of connected sums of torus knots
• Immersed concordance of links and Heegaard Floer homology
• Computing the unknotting numbers of certain pretzel knots
• A note on the four-dimensional clasp number of knots
• Stably slice disks of links
• Concordance, Crossing Changes, and Knots in Homology Spheres
• Slicing knots in definite 4-manifolds
• Fillable contact structures from positive surgery
• Upper and lower bounds on delta-crossing number and tabulation of knots up to four delta-crossings
• Heegaard Floer homology, knotifications of links, and plane curves with noncuspidal singularities
• Closed geodesics and Frøyshov invariants of hyperbolic three-manifolds
• MATRIX-MFO tandem workshop: Invariants in low-dimensional topology: combinatorics, geometry, and computation. Abstracts from the MATRIX-MFO tandem workshop held September 22--27, 2024
• Integer inequalities between knot invariants, skein tree depth and delta-crossing numbers

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