English

Unknotting number 21 knots are slice in K3

Geometric Topology 2025-08-18 v2

Abstract

We prove that all knots with unknotting number at most 21 are smoothly slice in the K3 surface. We also prove a more general statement for 4-manifolds that contain a plumbing tree of spheres. Our strategy is based on a flexible method to remove double points of immersed surfaces in 4-manifolds by tubing over neighbourhoods of embedded trees. As a byproduct, we recover a classical result of Norman and Suzuki that every knot is smoothly slice in S2×S2S^2 \times S^2 and in CP2#CP2\mathbb{CP}^2 \# \overline{\mathbb{CP}^2}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2210.10089,
  title  = {Unknotting number 21 knots are slice in K3},
  author = {Marco Marengon and Stefan Mihajlović},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.10089},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

13 pages, 7 figures. Final version accepted for publication