Khovanov homology and the slice genus

Concordance invariants of knots are derived from the instanton homology groups with local coefficients, as introduced in earlier work of the authors. These concordance invariants include a 1-parameter family of homomorphisms $f_{r}$, from the knot concordance group to the reals. Prima facie, these concordance invariants have the potential to provide independent bounds on the genus and number of double points for immersed surfaces with boundary a given knot.

We define an involutive version of Khovanov homology and a pair of integer-valued invariants $(\underline{s}, \bar{s})$ for strongly invertible knots, which is an equivariant version of the Rasmussen invariant $s$. Using these invariants, we show that there is an infinite family of knots $J_n$ admitting exotic pairs of slice disks. Our construction is intended to give a Khovanov-theoretic analogue of the formalism given by Dai, Mallick and Stoffregen in knot Floer theory.

The concordance genus of a knot is the least genus of any knot in its concordance class. Although difficult to compute, it is a useful invariant that highlights the distinction between the three-genus and four-genus. In this paper we define and discuss the stable concordance genus of a knot, which describes the behavior of the concordance genus under connected sum.

We show that the difference between the topological 4-genus of a knot and the minimal genus of a surface bounded by that knot that can be decomposed into a smooth concordance followed by an algebraically simple locally flat surface can be arbitrarily large. This extends work of Hedden-Livingston-Ruberman showing that there are topologically slice knots which are not smoothly concordant to any knot with trivial Alexander polynomial.

The main goal of the present paper is to construct new invariants of knots with additional structure by adding new gradings to the Khovanov complex. The ideas given below work in the case of virtual knots, closed braids and some other cases of knots with additional structure. The source of our additional grading may be topological or combinatorial; it is axiomatised for many partial cases. As a byproduct, this leads to a complex which in some cases coincides (up to grading re...

We show that the information contained in the associated graded vector space to Gornik's version of Khovanov-Rozansky knot homology is equivalent to a single even integer s_n(K). Furthermore we show that s_n is a homomorphism from the smooth knot concordance group to the integers. This is in analogy with Rasmussen's invariant coming from a perturbation of Khovanov homology.

We define two concordance invariants of knots using framed instanton homology. These invariants $\nu^\sharp$ and $\tau^\sharp$ provide bounds on slice genus and maximum self-linking number, and the latter is a concordance homomorphism which agrees in all known cases with the $\tau$ invariant in Heegaard Floer homology. We use $\nu^\sharp$ and $\tau^\sharp$ to compute the framed instanton homology of all nonzero rational Dehn surgeries on: 20 of the 35 nontrivial prime knots t...

The concordance genus of a knot K is the minimum three-genus among all knots concordant to K. For prime knots of 10 or fewer crossings there have been three knots for which the concordance genus was unknown. Those three cases are now resolved. Two of the cases are settled using invariants of Levine's algebraic concordance group. The last case depends on the use of twisted Alexander polynomials, viewed as Casson-Gordon invariants.

It is known that the maximal homological degree of the Khovanov homology of a knot gives a lower bound of the minimal positive crossing number of the knot. In this paper, we show that the maximal homological degree of the Khovanov homology of a cabling of a knot gives a lower bound of the minimal positive crossing number of the knot.

The slicing degree of a knot $K$ is defined as the smallest integer $k$ such that $K$ is $k$-slice in $\#^n \overline{\mathbb{CP}^2}$ for some $n$. In this paper, we establish bounds for the slicing degrees of knots using Rasmussen's $s$-invariant, knot Floer homology and singular instanton homology. We compute the slicing degrees for many small knots (with crossing numbers up to $9$) and for some families of torus knots.