Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-18-2018

Abstract

We prove that the knot Floer homology of a fibered knot is nontrivial in its next-to-top Alexander grading. Immediate applications include new proofs of Krcatovich’s result that knots with L–space surgeries are prime and Hedden and Watson’s result that the rank of knot Floer homology detects the trefoil among knots in the 3–sphere. We also generalize the latter result, proving a similar theorem for nullhomologous knots in any 3–manifold. We note that our method of proof inspired Baldwin and Sivek’s recent proof that Khovanov homology detects the trefoil. As part of this work, we also introduce a numerical refinement of the Ozsváth–Szabó contact invariant. This refinement was the inspiration for Hubbard and Saltz’s annular refinement of Plamenevskaya’s transverse link invariant in Khovanov homology.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Algebraic and Geometric Topology

First Page

3669

Last Page

3690

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