Dehn surgeries and rational homology balls

Abstract

We consider the question of which Dehn surgeries along a given knot bound rational homology balls. We use Ozsváth and Szabó’s correction terms in Heegaard Floer homology to obtain general constraints on the surgery coefficients. We then turn our attention to the case of integral surgeries, with particular emphasis on positive torus knots. Finally, combining these results with a lattice-theoretic obstruction based on Donaldson’s theorem, we classify which integral surgeries along torus knots of the form $T_{kq\pm 1,q}$ bound rational homology balls.