English

On Knots with trivial Alexander polynomial

Geometric Topology 2007-05-23 v3 Quantum Algebra

Abstract

We use the 2-loop term of the Kontsevich integral to show that there are (many) knots with trivial Alexander polynomial which don't have a Seifert surface whose genus equals the rank of the Seifert form. This is one of the first applications of the Kontsevich integral to intrinsically 3-dimensional questions in topology. Our examples contradict a lemma of Mike Freedman, and we explain what went wrong in his argument and why the mistake is irrelevant for topological knot concordance. References updated.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0206023,
  title  = {On Knots with trivial Alexander polynomial},
  author = {Stavros Garoufalidis and Peter Teichner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0206023},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

LaTeX, 15 pages with 23 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-22T16:45:48.071Z