Equality of ribbon numbers for symmetric ribbon knots of ribbon number two

Let KK be a symmetric ribbon knot. Its ribbon number r(K)r(K) is the minimum number of ribbon singularities in any ribbon disk bounded by KK, and its symmetric ribbon number rs(K)r_s(K) is the minimum number of ribbon singularities in any symmetric ribbon disk bounded by KK.

Ribbon-number-two conjecture. If r(K)=2r(K)=2, then

rs(K)=2.r_s(K)=2.

All examples in the authors' data with rs(K)>r(K)r_s(K)>r(K) have r(K)≥3r(K)\geq 3, so the conjecture isolates the first case in which the two invariants might necessarily agree.

References

Primary source

Sajid Raihan Akash, Eric Corrado, Bishop Placke, Sam Sanketh, Nick Starns, Anok Timothy and Alexander Zupan, “Symmetric ribbon numbers of low-complexity knots”, arXiv:2606.02390 (2026).

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