Notions of Positivity and the Ozsváth–szabó Concordance Invariant

In this paper we examine the relationship between various types of positivity for knots and the concordance invariant τ discovered by Ozsváth and Szabó and independently by Rasmussen. The main result shows that, for fibered knots, τ characterizes strong quasipositivity. This is quantified by the statement that for K fibered, τ(K) = g(K) if and only if K is strongly quasipositive. A corollary is that any knot admitting a lens space surgery or, more generally, an L-space surgery, is strongly quasipositive. In addition, we survey existing results regarding τ and forms of positivity and highlight several consequences concerning the types of knots which are (strongly) (quasi) positive.