Kearton observed that mutation can change the concordance class of a knot. A close examination of his example reveals that it is of 4-genus 1 and has a mutant of 4-genus 0. The first goal of this paper is to construct examples to show that for any pair of nonnegative integers m and n there is a knot of 4-genus m with a mutant of 4-genus n.
A second result of this paper is a crossing change formula for the algebraic concordance class of a knot, which is then applied to prove the invariance of the algebraic concordance class under mutation. The paper concludes with an application of crossing change formulas to give a short new proof of Long's theorem that strongly positive amphicheiral knots are algebraically slice.
We study the effect of mutation on link concordance and 3-manifolds. We show that the set of links concordant to sublinks of homology boundary links is not closed under positive mutation. We show that mutation does not preserve homology cobordism classes of 3-manifolds. A significant consequence is that there exist 3-manifolds which have the same quantum SU(2)-invariants but are not homology cobordant. These results are obtained by investigating the effect of mutation on the Milnor invariants, or equivalently the Massey products.
The concordance genus of a knot is the least genus of any knot in its concordance class. Although difficult to compute, it is a useful invariant that highlights the distinction between the three-genus and four-genus. In this paper we define and discuss the stable concordance genus of a knot, which describes the behavior of the concordance genus under connected sum.
The concordance genus of a knot is the least genus of any knot in its concordance class. It is bounded above by the genus of the knot, and bounded below by the slice genus, two well-studied invariants. In this paper we consider the concordance genus of 11--crossing prime knots. This analysis resolves the concordance genus of 533 of the 552 prime 11--crossing knots. The appendix to the paper gives concordance diagrams for 59 knots found to be concordant to knots of lower genus, including null-concordances for the 30 11--crossing knots known to be slice.
The concordance genus of a knot K is the minimum Seifert genus of all knots smoothly concordant to K. Concordance genus is bounded below by the 4-ball genus and above by the Seifert genus. We give a lower bound for the concordance genus of K coming from the knot Floer complex of K. As an application, we prove that there are topologically slice knots with 4-ball genus equal to one and arbitrarily large concordance genus.
The concordance genus of a knot K is the minimum three-genus among all knots concordant to K. For prime knots of 10 or fewer crossings there have been three knots for which the concordance genus was unknown. Those three cases are now resolved. Two of the cases are settled using invariants of Levine's algebraic concordance group. The last case depends on the use of twisted Alexander polynomials, viewed as Casson-Gordon invariants.
We define a filtration of the smooth concordance group based on the genus of representative knots. We use the Heegaard Floer epsilon and Upsilon invariants to prove the quotient groups with respect to this filtration are infinitely generated. Results are applied to three infinite families of topologically slice knots.
We show that the difference between the topological 4-genus of a knot and the minimal genus of a surface bounded by that knot that can be decomposed into a smooth concordance followed by an algebraically simple locally flat surface can be arbitrarily large. This extends work of Hedden-Livingston-Ruberman showing that there are topologically slice knots which are not smoothly concordant to any knot with trivial Alexander polynomial.
We provide a framework for studying the interplay between concordance and positive mutation and identify some of the basic structures relating the two. The fundamental result in understanding knot concordance is the structure theorem proved by Levine: for n>1 there is an isomorphism phi from the concordance group C_n of knotted (2n-1)-spheres in S^{2n+1} to an algebraically defined group G_{+-}; furthermore, G__{+-} is isomorphic to the infinite direct sum Z^infty direct sum Z_2^infty direct sum Z_4^infty. It was a startling consequence of the work of Casson and Gordon that in the classical ca…
We show that the differences between various concordance invariants of knots, including Rasmussen's $s$-invariant and its generalizations $s_n$-invariants, give lower bounds to the Turaev genus of knots. Using the fact that our bounds are nontrivial for some quasi-alternating knots, we show the additivity of Turaev genus for a certain class of knots. This leads us to the first example of an infinite family of quasi-alternating knots with Turaev genus exactly $g$ for any fixed positive integer $g$, solving a question of Champanerkar-Kofman.
Cha and Kim proved that if a knot K is not algebraically slice, then no iterated Bing double of K is concordant to the unlink. We prove that if K has nontrivial signature $σ$, then the n-iterated Bing double of K is not concordant to any boundary link with boundary surfaces of genus less than $2^{n-1}σ$. The same result holds with $σ$ replaced by $2τ$, twice the Ozsvath-Szabo knot concordance invariant.
We introduce a new class of links for which we give a lower bound for the slice genus $g_*$, using the generalized Rasmussen invariant. We show that this bound, in some cases, allows one to compute $g_*$ exactly; in particular, we compute $g_*$ for torus links. We also study another link invariant: the strong slice genus $g_*^*$. Studying the behaviour of a specific type of cobordisms in Lee homology, a lower bound for $g_*^*$ is also given.
The knot concordance invariant Upsilon, recently defined by Ozsvath, Stipsicz, and Szabo, takes values in the group of piecewise linear functions on the closed interval [0,2]. This paper presents a description of one approach to defining Upsilon and of proving its basic properties related to the knot 3-genus, 4-genus, and concordance genus.
In knot concordance three genera arise naturally, g(K), g_4(K), and g_c(K): these are the classical genus, the 4-ball genus, and the concordance genus, defined to be the minimum genus among all knots concordant to K. Clearly 0 <= g_4(K) <= g_c(K) <= g(K). Casson and Nakanishi gave examples to show that g_4(K) need not equal g_c(K). We begin by reviewing and extending their results. For knots representing elements in A, the concordance group of algebraically slice knots, the relationships between these genera are less clear. Casson and Gordon's result that A is nontrivial implies that g_4(K) ca…
We use the Blanchfield form to obtain a lower bound on the equivariant slice genus of a strongly invertible knot. For our main application, let $K$ be a genus one strongly invertible slice knot with nontrivial Alexander polynomial. We show that the equivariant slice genus of an equivariant connected sum $\#^n K$ is at least $n/4$. We also formulate an equivariant algebraic concordance group, and show that the kernel of the forgetful map to the classical algebraic concordance group is infinite rank.
We prove that the map on knot Floer homology induced by a ribbon concordance is injective. As a consequence, we prove that the Seifert genus is monotonic under ribbon concordance. We also generalize a theorem of Gabai about the super-additivity of the Seifert genus under band connected sum. Our result gives evidence for a conjecture of Gordon that ribbon concordance is a partial order on the set of knots.
We modify the construction of knot Floer homology to produce a one-parameter family of homologies for knots in the three-sphere. These invariants can be used to give homomorphisms from the smooth concordance group to the integers, giving bounds on the four-ball genus and the concordance genus of knots. We give some applications of these homomorphisms.
We derive a linear estimate of the signature of positive knots, in terms of their genus. As an application, we show that every knot concordance class contains at most finitely many positive knots.
By considering a version of Khovanov homology incorporating both the Lee and $E(-1)$ differentials, we construct a $1$-parameter family of concordance homomorphisms similar to the Upsilon invariant from knot Floer homology. This invariant gives lower bounds on the slice genus and can be used to prove that certain infinite families of pretzel knots are linearly independent in the smooth concordance group.
Genus 2 mutation is the process of cutting a 3-manifold along an embedded closed genus 2 surface, twisting by the hyper-elliptic involution, and gluing back. This paper compares genus 2 mutation with the better-known Conway mutation in the context of knots in the 3-sphere. Despite the fact that any Conway mutation can be achieved by a sequence of at most two genus 2 mutations, the invariants that are preserved by genus 2 mutation are a proper subset of those preserved by Conway mutation. In particular, while the Alexander and Jones polynomials are preserved by genus 2 mutation, the HOMFLY-PT p…
In this paper we will show that two surfaces of the same genus and homology class in a simply connected 4-manifold are concordant. We will show they are often topologically isotopic when their complements have cyclic fundamental group. Finally, we will show that if they are 0-concordant, then surgery on one is equivalent to surgery on the other.
Concordance invariants of knots are derived from the instanton homology groups with local coefficients, as introduced in earlier work of the authors. These concordance invariants include a 1-parameter family of homomorphisms $f_{r}$, from the knot concordance group to the reals. Prima facie, these concordance invariants have the potential to provide independent bounds on the genus and number of double points for immersed surfaces with boundary a given knot.
Based on work of Rasmussen, we construct a concordance invariant associated to the knot Floer complex, and exhibit examples in which this invariant gives arbitrarily better bounds on the 4-ball genus than the Ozsvath-Szabo tau invariant.
We prove that for any winding number $m>0$ pattern $P$ and winding number $-m$ pattern $Q$, there exist knots $K$ such that the minimal genus of a cobordism between $P(K)$ and $Q(K)$ is arbitrarily large. This answers a question posed by Cochran-Harvey [CH17] and generalizes a result of Kim-Livingston [KL05].
We define two concordance invariants of knots using framed instanton homology. These invariants $ν^\sharp$ and $τ^\sharp$ provide bounds on slice genus and maximum self-linking number, and the latter is a concordance homomorphism which agrees in all known cases with the $τ$ invariant in Heegaard Floer homology. We use $ν^\sharp$ and $τ^\sharp$ to compute the framed instanton homology of all nonzero rational Dehn surgeries on: 20 of the 35 nontrivial prime knots through 8 crossings, infinite families of twist and pretzel knots, and instanton L-space knots; and of 19 of the first 20 closed hyper…
We define an infinite family of linearly independent, integer-valued smooth concordance homomorphisms. Our homomorphisms are explicitly computable and rely on local equivalence classes of knot Floer complexes over the ring $\mathbb{F}[U, V]/(UV=0)$. We compare our invariants to other concordance homomorphisms coming from knot Floer homology, and discuss applications to topologically slice knots, concordance genus, and concordance unknotting number.
We describe an action of the concordance group of knots in the three-sphere on concordances of knots in arbitrary 3-manifolds. As an application we define the notion of almost-concordance between knots. After some basic results, we prove the existence of non-trivial almost-concordance classes in all non-abelian 3-manifolds. Afterwards, we focus the attention on the case of lens spaces, and use a modified version of the Ozsvath-Szabo-Rasmussen's tau-invariant to obstruct almost-concordances and prove that each L(p,1) admits infinitely many nullhomologous non almost-concordant knots. Finally we …
We define a quasihomomorphism from braid groups to the concordance group of knots and examine its properties and consequences of its existence. In particular, we provide a relation between the stable four ball genus in the concordance group and the stable commutator length in braid groups, and produce examples of infinite families of concordance classes of knots with uniformly bounded four ball genus. We also provide applications to the geometry of the infinite braid group. In particular, we show that its commutator subgroup admits a stably unbounded conjugation invariant norm. This answers an…
In this paper, we study the distribution of the genuses of cluster quivers of finite mutation type. First, we prove that in the $11$ exceptional cases, the distribution of genuses is $0$ or $1$. Next, we consider the relationship between the genus of an oriented surface and that of cluster quivers from this surface. It is verified that the genus of an oriented surface is an upper bound for the genuses of cluster quivers from this surface. Furthermore, for any non-negative integer $n$ and a closed oriented surface of genus $n$, we show that there always exist a set of punctures and a triangulat…
In an earlier work, we introduced a family of t-modified knot Floer homologies, defined by modifying the construction of knot Floer homology HFK-minus. The resulting groups were then used to define concordance homomorphisms indexed by t in [0,2]. In the present work we elaborate on the special case t=1, and call the corresponding modified knot Floer homology the unoriented knot Floer homology. Using elementary methods (based on grid diagrams and normal forms for surface cobordisms), we show that the resulting concordance homomorphism gives a lower bound for the smooth 4-dimensional crosscap nu…
For each $g>0$ we give infinitely many knots that are strongly negative amphichiral, hence rationally slice and representing 2-torsion in the smooth concordance group, yet which do not bound any locally flatly embedded surface in the 4-ball with genus less than or equal to $g$. Our examples also allow us to answer a question about the 4-dimensional clasp number of knots.
Ozsvath and Szabo have defined a knot concordance invariant tau that bounds the 4-ball genus of a knot. Here we discuss shortcuts to its computation. We include examples of Alexander polynomial one knots for which the invariant is nontrivial, including all iterated untwisted positive doubles of knots with nonnegative Thurston-Bennequin number, such as the trefoil, and explicit computations for several 10 crossing knots. We also note that a new proof of the Slice-Bennequin Inequality quickly follows from these techniques.
We introduce Tristram-Levine signatures of virtual knots and use them to investigate virtual knot concordance. The signatures are defined first for almost classical knots, which are virtual knots admitting homologically trivial representations. The signatures and $ω$-signatures are shown to give bounds on the topological slice genus of almost classical knots, and they are applied to address a recent question of Dye, Kaestner, and Kauffman on the virtual slice genus of classical knots. A conjecture on the topological slice genus is formulated and confirmed for all classical knots with up to 11 …
The knot invariant Upsilon, defined by Ozsvath, Stipsicz, and Szabo, induces a homomorphism from the smooth knot concordance group to the group of piecewise linear functions on the interval [0,2]. Here we define a set of related secondary invariants, each of which assigns to a knot a piecewise linear function on [0,2]. These secondary invariants provide bounds on the genus and concordance genus of knots. Examples of knots for which Upsilon vanishes but which are detected by these secondary invariants are presented.
Let $\mathcal{L}$ be a knot with a fixed positive crossing and $\mathcal{L}_n$ the link obtained by replacing this crossing with $n$ positive twists. We prove that the knot Floer homology $\widehat{\text{HFK}}(\mathcal{L}_n)$ `stabilizes' as $n$ goes to infinity. This categorifies a similar stabilization phenomenon of the Alexander polynomial. As an application, we construct an infinite family of prime, positive mutant knots with isomorphic bigraded knot Floer homology groups. Moreover, given any pair of positive mutants, we describe how to derive a corresponding infinite family positive mutan…
We produce infinite families of knots $\{K^i\}_{i\geq 1}$ for which the set of cables $\{K^i_{p,1}\}_{i,p\geq 1}$ is linearly independent in the knot concordance group. We arrange that these examples lie arbitrarily deep in the solvable and bipolar filtrations of the knot concordance group, denoted by $\{F_n\}$ and $\{B_n\}$ respectively. As a consequence, this result cannot be reached by any combination of algebraic concordance invariants, Casson-Gordon invariants, and Heegaard-Floer invariants such as tau, epsilon, and Upsilon. We give two applications of this result. First, for any n>=0, th…
In an earlier paper, we introduced a collection of graded Abelian groups $\HFKa(Y,K)$ associated to knots in a three-manifold. The aim of the present paper is to investigate these groups for several specific families of knots, including the Kinoshita-Terasaka knots and their ``Conway mutants''. These results show that $\HFKa$ contains more information than the Alexander polynomial and the signature of these knots; and they also illustrate the fact that $\HFKa$ detects mutation. We also calculate $\HFKa$ for certain pretzel knots, and knots with small crossing number ($n\leq 9$). Our calculatio…
We present a lower bound on the stable $4$-genus of a knot based on Casson-Gordon $τ$-signatures. We compute the lower bound for an infinite family of knots, the twist knots, and show that a twist knot is torsion in the knot concordance group if and only if it has vanishing stable $4$-genus.
Using the theory of involutive Heegaard Floer knot theory developed by Hendricks-Manolescu, we define two involutive analogs of the Upsilon knot concordance invariant of Ozsvath-Stipsicz-Szabo. These involutive invariants are piecewise linear functions defined on the interval [0,2]. Each is a concordance invariant and provides bounds on the three-genus of a knot.
For certain classes of knots we define geometric invariants called higher-order genera. Each of these invariants is a refinement of the slice genus of a knot. We find lower bounds for the higher-order genera in terms of certain von Neumann $ρ$-invariants, which we call higher-order signatures. The higher-order genera offer a refinement of the Grope filtration of the knot concordance group.
This paper studies cobordism and concordance for virtual knots. We define the affine index polynomial, prove that it is a concordance invariant for knots and links (explaining when it is defined for links), show that it is also invariant under certain forms of labeled cobordism and study a number of examples in relation to these phenomena. Information on determinations of the four-ball genus of some virtual knots is obtained by via the affine index polynomial in conjunction with results on the genus of positive virtual knots using joint work with Dye and Kaestner.
To a special type of grope embedded in 4-space, that we call an admissible grope, we associate a length function for each real number q at least 1. This gives rise to a family of pseudo-metrics d^q, refining the slice genus metric, on the set of concordance classes of knots, as the infimum of the length function taken over all possible grope concordances between two knots. We investigate the properties of these metrics. The main theorem is that the topology induced by this metric on the knot concordance set is not discrete for all q>1. The analogous statement for links also holds for q=1. In a…
A spectral sequence is established, from Bar-Natan's variant of Khovanov homology to a deformation of instanton homology for knots and links. This spectral sequence arises as a specialization of a spectral sequence from a characteristic-2 version of $F_5$ homology, in Khovanov'sclassification. Concordance invariants of knots are derived from the corresponding instanton homology groups, including a 1-parameter family of homomorphisms $f_r$ from the concordance group to the reals, having the potential to provide independent bounds on the genus and number of double points for immersed surfaces wi…
We use the knot homology of Khovanov and Lee to construct link concordance invariants generalizing the Rasmussen $s$-invariant of knots. The relevant invariant for a link is a filtration on a vector space of dimension $2^{|L|}$. The basic properties of the $s$-invariant all extend to the case of links; in particular, any orientable cobordism $Σ$ between links induces a map between their corresponding vector spaces which is filtered of degree $χ(Σ)$. A corollary of this construction is that any component preserving orientable cobordism from a $\Kh$-thin link to a link split into $k$ components …
Given a knot complement X and its p-fold cyclic cover X_p, we identify twisted polynomials associated to 1-dimensional linear representations of the fundamental group of X_p with twisted polynomials associated to related p-dimensional linear representations of the fundamental group of X. This provides a simpler and faster algorithm to compute these twisted polynomials, allowing us to prove that 16 (of 18 previously unknown) algebraically slice knots of 12 or fewer crossings are not slice. We also use this improved algorithm to prove that the 24 mutants of the pretzel knot P(3,7,9,11,15), corre…
We study the equivariant genera of strongly invertible and periodic knots. Our techniques include some new strongly invertible concordance group invariants, Donaldson's theorem, and the g-signature. We find many new examples where the equivariant 4-genus is larger than the 4-genus.
By considering negative surgeries on a knot $K$ in $S^3$, we derive a lower bound to the non-orientable slice genus $γ_4(K)$ in terms of the signature $σ(K)$ and the concordance invariants $V_i(\overline{K})$, which strengthens a previous bound given by Batson, and which coincides with Ozsváth-Stipsicz-Szabó's bound in terms of their $\upsilon$ invariant for L-space knots and quasi-alternating knots. A curious feature of our bound is superadditivity, implying, for instance, that the bound on the stable non-orientable genus is sometimes better than the one on $γ_4(K)$.
We use the Bar-Natan Zh-correspondence to identify the generalized Alexander polynomial of a virtual knot with the Alexander polynomial of a two component welded link. We show that the Zh-map is functorial under concordance, and also that Satoh's Tube map (from welded links to ribbon knotted tori in $S^4$) is functorial under concordance. In addition, we extend classical results of Chen, Milnor, and Hillman on the lower central series of link groups to links in thickened surfaces. Our main result is that the generalized Alexander polynomial vanishes on any knot in a thickened surface which is …
Given a diagram D of a knot K, we give easily computable bounds for Rasmussen's concordance invariant s(K). The bounds are not independent of the diagram D chosen, but we show that for diagrams satisfying a given condition the bounds are tight. As a corollary we improve on previously known Bennequin-type bounds on the slice genus.
In this paper, we compute the slice genus for many low-crossing virtual knots. For instance, we show that 1295 out of 92800 virtual knots with 6 or fewer crossings are slice, and that all but 248 of the rest are not slice. Key to these results are computations of Turaev's graded genus, which we show extends to give an invariant of virtual knot concordance. The graded genus is remarkably effective as a slice obstruction, and we develop an algorithm that applies virtual unknotting operations to determine the slice genus of many virtual knots with 6 or fewer crossings.
In this short note we observe that a result of Eliashberg and Polterovitch allows to use the doubly slice genus as an obstruction for a Legendrian knot to be a slice of a concordance from the trivial Legendrian knot with maximal Thurston-Bennequin invariant to itself. This allows to obstruct concordances from the Pretzel knot P(3,-3,-m) when m > 3 to the unknot. Those examples are of interest because the Legendrian contact homology algebra cannot be used to obstruct such a concordance.
We use Lee's work on the Khovanov homology to define a knot invariant s. We show that s(K) is a concordance invariant and that it provides a lower bound for the slice genus of K. As a corollary, we give a purely combinatorial proof of the Milnor conjecture.
