Independence of the intersection tree from the Whitney tower

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Let A1,…,AmA_1,\dots,A_m be the original maps, let W\mathcal{W} be a Whitney tower on them, and let τn(W)\tau_n(\mathcal{W}) be its intersection tree, regarded as an element of the quotient Tn(π,m)/INT,FR\mathcal{T}_n(\pi,m)/\mathrm{INT, FR}. The original maps have regular homotopy classes given by their equivalence classes under regular homotopy. Whitney-tower independence conjecture. The intersection tree

τn(W)∈Tn(π,m)/INT,FR\tau_n(\mathcal{W})\in \mathcal{T}_n(\pi,m)/\mathrm{INT, FR}

is independent of the choice of the Whitney tower W\mathcal{W}. In fact, it only depends on the regular homotopy classes of the original maps AiA_i, and should be written as τn(A1,…,Am)\tau_n(A_1,\dots,A_m). The INT and FR relations account for indeterminacies arising from choices of Whitney-disk interiors and framings; the paper provides evidence for this conjecture by proving a closely related special case, while the full statement is not resolved here.

References

Primary source

Rob Schneiderman and Peter Teichner, “Whitney towers and the Kontsevich integral”, arXiv:math/0401441 (2004).

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