Trunk of Satellite and Companion Knots

Nithin Kavi, Wendy Wu

Published 2018-12-08Version 1

We study the knot invariant called trunk, as defined by Ozawa, and the relation of the trunk of a satellite knot with the trunk of its companion knot. Our first result is ${\rm trunk}(K) \geq n \cdot {\rm trunk}(J)$ where ${\rm trunk}(\cdot)$ denotes the trunk of a knot, $K$ is a satellite knot with companion $J$, and $n$ is the winding number of $K$. To upgrade winding number to wrapping number, which we denote by $m$, we must include an extra factor of $\frac{1}{2}$ in our second result ${\rm trunk}(K) > \frac{1}{2} m\cdot {\rm trunk}(J)$ since $m \geq n$. We also discuss generalizations of the second result.