Computations of the Ozsvath-Szabo knot concordance invariant (Q1882831)

Any knot \(K\) in \(S^{3}\) bounds a smoothly embedded oriented 2-manifold in \(B^{4}\). The minimal genus \(g_{4}(K)\) of such a surface is called the \(4\)-ball genus of \(K\). In recent years, Ozsváth and Szabó defined a new knot concordance invariant \(\tau(K)\) which bounds \(g_{4}(K)\). The author evaluates \(\tau(K)\) for a number of examples by using basic properties of it. It is shown that the untwisted positive double of the trefoil knot and the pretzel knot \(P(3,-5,-7)\) have \(\tau =1\) by proving the following. Suppose that a knot \(K\) is embedded in the interior of a fiber surface \(F\) of a torus knot \(T=T_{p,q}\) with \(pq>0\) and that \(K\) is null homologous of \(F\), bounding a surface \(G\subset F\). Then \(\tau(K)=g_{4}(K)=g_{3}(K)=g(G)\), where \(g_{3}(K)\) and \(g(G)\) are genera of \(K\) and \(G\), respectively. The author also shows that if a knot has nonnegative Thurston-Bennequin number, then all iterated untwisted positive doubles of it satisfy \(\tau =1\) and thus \(g_{4} =1\). In particular, they are nontrivial in the knot concordance group. On the one hand the untwisted Whitehead double of a knot has trivial Alexander polynomial. Thus it is trivial in the topological knot concordance group by using a deep result of M. H. Freedman.