Involutions, knots, and Floer K-theory

Abstract

We establish a version of Seiberg--Witten Floer $K$-theory for knots, as well as a version of Seiberg-Witten Floer $K$-theory for 3-manifolds with involution. The main theorems are 10/8-type inequalities for knots and for involutions. The 10/8-inequality for knots yields numerous applications to knots, such as lower bounds on stabilizing numbers and relative genera. We also give obstructions to extending involutions on 3-manifolds to 4-manifolds, and detect non-smoothable involutions on 4-manifolds with boundary.