Stable Kauffman conjecture

Prove that a smooth knot is slice if and only if it admits a Seifert surface with a slice link derivative.

Background

A derivative is a link on a Seifert surface whose generated homology summand is isotropic for the Seifert form and whose complement is connected and planar. The paper records the stable Kauffman conjecture as a smooth precedent for its contact derivative characterizations.

References

A knot is slice if and only if it admits a Seifert surface with a slice link derivative.

— Derivative links in contact topology  (2609.30182 - Breen et al., 24 Sep 2026) in Conjecture 1.4, subsection “Derivative characterizations of contact sliceness”