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Main Authors: Howards, Hugh, Kindred, Thomas, Moore, W. Frank, Tolbert, John
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.12858
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author Howards, Hugh
Kindred, Thomas
Moore, W. Frank
Tolbert, John
author_facet Howards, Hugh
Kindred, Thomas
Moore, W. Frank
Tolbert, John
contents All checkerboard surfaces for a given knot in $S^3$ are related by isotopy and "kinking" and "unkinking" moves, which change the surfaces' Goeritz matrices like this: $G\leftrightarrow G\oplus [\pm1]=\left[\begin{smallmatrix} G&\mathbf{0}\\ \mathbf{0}^T&\pm1 \end{smallmatrix}\right]$. We call two symmetric integer matrices "kink-equivalent" if they are related by "kinking'' and "unkinking'' moves $G\leftrightarrow G\oplus [\pm1]$ and unimodular congruence. We prove constructively that every nonsingular symmetric integer matrix is kink-equivalent to a positive-definite matrix and to a negative-definite matrix, and we give bounds on the number of moves required. This has several implications, e.g. every knot in $S^3$ is "alternating up to fake unkinking moves" and every simply connected, closed, topological 4-manifold with nonsingular intersection pairing has a positive blow-up that is homeomorphic to a negative blow-up of a positive-definite, simply connected, closed, topological 4-manifold.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_12858
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Kink-equivalence of matrices, spanning surfaces, 4-manifolds, and quadratic forms
Howards, Hugh
Kindred, Thomas
Moore, W. Frank
Tolbert, John
Geometric Topology
Number Theory
57K10, 57K40, 15A63, 11E20
All checkerboard surfaces for a given knot in $S^3$ are related by isotopy and "kinking" and "unkinking" moves, which change the surfaces' Goeritz matrices like this: $G\leftrightarrow G\oplus [\pm1]=\left[\begin{smallmatrix} G&\mathbf{0}\\ \mathbf{0}^T&\pm1 \end{smallmatrix}\right]$. We call two symmetric integer matrices "kink-equivalent" if they are related by "kinking'' and "unkinking'' moves $G\leftrightarrow G\oplus [\pm1]$ and unimodular congruence. We prove constructively that every nonsingular symmetric integer matrix is kink-equivalent to a positive-definite matrix and to a negative-definite matrix, and we give bounds on the number of moves required. This has several implications, e.g. every knot in $S^3$ is "alternating up to fake unkinking moves" and every simply connected, closed, topological 4-manifold with nonsingular intersection pairing has a positive blow-up that is homeomorphic to a negative blow-up of a positive-definite, simply connected, closed, topological 4-manifold.
title Kink-equivalence of matrices, spanning surfaces, 4-manifolds, and quadratic forms
topic Geometric Topology
Number Theory
57K10, 57K40, 15A63, 11E20
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.12858