Superbridge index of composite knots

Abstract

An upper bound of the superbridge index of the connected sum of two knots is given in terms of the braid index of the summands. Using this upper bound and minimal polygonal presentations, we give an upper bound in terms of the superbridge index and the bridge index of the summands when they are torus knots. In contrast to the fact that the difference between the sum of bridge indices of two knots and the bridge index of their connected sum is always one, the corresponding difference for the superbridge index can be arbitrarily large.