English

Unknotting nonorientable surfaces

Geometric Topology 2024-11-26 v2

Abstract

Given a nonorientable, locally flatly embedded surface in the 44-sphere of nonorientable genus hh, Massey showed that the normal Euler number lies in {2h,2h+4,,2h4,2h}\lbrace -2h,-2h+4,\ldots,2h-4,2h \rbrace. We prove that every such surface with knot group of order two is topologically unknotted, provided that the normal Euler number is not one of the extremal values in Massey's range. When hh is 11, 22, or 33, we prove the same holds even with extremal normal Euler number. We also study nonorientable embedded surfaces in the 4-ball with boundary a knot KK in the 3-sphere, again where the surface complement has fundamental group of order two and nonorientable genus hh. We prove that any two such surfaces with the same normal Euler number become topologically isotopic, rel. boundary, after adding a single tube to each. If the determinant of KK is trivial, we show that any two such surfaces are isotopic, rel. boundary, again provided that they have non-extremal normal Euler number, or that hh is 11, 22, or 33.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2306.12305,
  title  = {Unknotting nonorientable surfaces},
  author = {Anthony Conway and Patrick Orson and Mark Powell},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.12305},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

63 pages. 2 figures. v2 implements suggestions of an anonymous referee. To appear in JEMS

R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:10:48.762Z