The next-to-top term of the knot Floer homology of some non-fibered knots

Abstract

Sivek conjectured that the rank of knot Floer homology in the next-to-top Alexander grading is at least the rank in the top Alexander grading. Baldwin and Vela-Vick verified this conjecture in the case of fibered knots arXiv:1801.06563. Ni gave a generalization of this result (for knots in generalized $L$-spaces) to cases in which the knot Floer homology satisfies an algebraic condition arXiv:2104.14687. We give an independent generalization of Baldwin and Vela-Vick's result to a family of knots with Seifert surfaces satisfying certain conditions.