Slice-torus concordance invariants and Whitehead doubles of links

Abstract

In the present paper we extend the definition of slice-torus invariant to links. We prove a few properties of the newly-defined slice-torus link invariants: the behaviour under crossing change, a slice genus bound, an obstruction to strong sliceness, and a combinatorial bound. Furthermore, we provide an application to the computation of the splitting number. Finally, we use the slice-torus link invariants, and the Whitehead doubling to define new strong concordance invariants for links, which are proven to be independent from the corresponding slice-torus link invariant.

31 pages, 19 figures, 4 tables. Improved exposition, typos fixed, slight improvement of Propositions 2.10 and 3.5, and added a comment on a result of A. Conway related to Theorem 1.4. Comments are welcome!