English

Codimension 2 embeddings, algebraic surgery and Seifert forms

Geometric Topology 2018-05-22 v2 Algebraic Topology

Abstract

We study the cobordism of manifolds with boundary, and its applications to codimension 2 embeddings MmNm+2M^m\subset N^{m+2}, using the method of the algebraic theory of surgery. The first main result is a splitting theorem for cobordisms of algebraic Poincar\'e pairs, which is then applied to describe the behaviour on the chain level of Seifert surfaces of embeddings M2n1S2n+1M^{2n-1} \subset S^{2n+1} under isotopy and cobordism. The second main result (update: which is false) is that the SS-equivalence class of a Seifert form is an isotopy invariant of the embedding, generalizing the Murasugi--Levine result for knots and links. The third main result is a generalized Murasugi--Kawauchi inequality giving an upper bound on the difference of the Levine--Tristram signatures of cobordant embeddings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1211.5964,
  title  = {Codimension 2 embeddings, algebraic surgery and Seifert forms},
  author = {Maciej Borodzik and András Némethi and Andrew Ranicki},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.5964},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

The paper contains an error. Main Theorem 2 is false. We are currently working on fixing the result (it will be more subtle), but it might take time. To the best of our knowledge Main Theorem 1 is correct and Main Theorem 3 should be restated in an appropriate way to work

R2 v1 2026-06-21T22:44:07.213Z