Quasipositivity as an obstruction to sliceness

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Publication:3138088




Abstract: For an oriented link LsubsetS3=Bd!D4, let chis(L) be the greatest Euler characteristic chi(F) of an oriented 2-manifold F (without closed components) smoothly embedded in D4 with boundary L. A knot K is {it slice} if chis(K)=1. Realize D4 in C2 as (z,w):|z|2+|w|2le1. It has been conjectured that, if V is a nonsingular complex plane curve transverse to S3, then chis(VcapS3)=chi(VcapD4). Kronheimer and Mrowka have proved this conjecture in the case that VcapD4 is the Milnor fiber of a singularity. I explain how this seemingly special case implies both the general case and the ``slice-Bennequin inequality for braids. As applications, I show that various knots are not slice (e.g., pretzel knots like Pscr(3,5,7); all knots obtained from a positive trefoil O2,3 by iterated untwisted positive doubling). As a sidelight, I give an optimal counterexample to the ``topologically locally-flat Thom conjecture.



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