Whitehead Doubles and Non-Orientable Surfaces

Abstract

Whitehead doubles provide a plethora of examples of knots that are topologically slice but not smoothly slice. We discuss the problem of the Whitehead double of the Figure 8 knot and survey commonly used techniques to obstructing sliceness. Additionally, we improve bounds in general for the non-orientable 4 genus of $t$-twisted Whitehead doubles and provide genus 1 non-orientable cobordisms to cable knots.