English

On the nonorientable 4-genus of double twist knots

Geometric Topology 2023-03-30 v3

Abstract

We investigate the nonorientable 4-genus γ4\gamma_4 of a special family of 2-bridge knots, the twist knots and double twist knots C(m,n)C(m,n). Because the nonorientable 4-genus is bounded by the nonorientable 3-genus, it is known that γ4(C(m,n))3\gamma_4(C(m,n)) \le 3. By using explicit constructions to obtain upper bounds on γ4\gamma_4 and known obstructions derived from Donaldson's diagonalization theorem to obtain lower bounds on γ4\gamma_4, we produce infinite subfamilies of C(m,n)C(m,n) where γ4=0,1,2,\gamma_4=0,1,2, and 33, respectively. However, there remain infinitely many double twist knots where our work only shows that γ4\gamma_4 lies in one of the sets {1,2},{2,3}\{1,2\}, \{2,3\}, or {1,2,3}\{1,2,3\}. We tabulate our results for all C(m,n)C(m,n) with m|m| and n|n| up to 50. We also provide an infinite number of examples which answer a conjecture of Murakami and Yasuhara.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2208.07850,
  title  = {On the nonorientable 4-genus of double twist knots},
  author = {Jim Hoste and Patrick D. Shanahan and Cornelia A. Van Cott},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.07850},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

Some exposition is revised, a figure is added, and typos are corrected, following comments from the referee