The obstruction conjecture for strongly exotic H-slice trace surgeries

Let KK and KK' be knots in S3S^3, and let S03(K)S^3_0(K) denote the 33-manifold obtained by zero surgery on KK. A knot is H-slice in a 44-manifold XX if it bounds a smoothly embedded disk in XX representing the relevant homological sliceness condition. Let b+(X)b^+(X) be the dimension of a maximal positive-definite subspace of the intersection form of XX. Obstruction conjecture. If there is a zero-surgery homeomorphism

ϕ:S03(K)S03(K)\phi:S^3_0(K)\longrightarrow S^3_0(K')

and KK is H-slice in a symplectic 44-manifold XX with b+(X)=3 mod4b^+(X)=3\ \operatorname{mod} 4, then K-K' does not bound a disk Δ\Delta in any symplectic 44-manifold XX' with b+(X)=3 mod4b^+(X')=3\ \operatorname{mod} 4, [Δ]20[\Delta]^2\geq 0, and [Δ]0[\Delta]\neq 0. The conjecture is intended to say that the Manolescu–Marengon–Piccirillo obstruction cannot detect strongly exotic H-slice trace surgeries; its status is not resolved in the supplied text.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Kai Nakamura, “Torus surguries on knot traces”, arXiv:2503.20684 (2025).

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