Link homology theories and ribbon concordances

Abstract

It was recently proved by several authors that ribbon concordances induce injective maps in knot Floer homology, Khovanov homology, and the Heegaard Floer homology of the branched double cover. We give a simple proof of a similar statement in a more general setting, which includes knot Floer homology, Khovanov–Rozansky homologies, and all conic strong Khovanov–Floer theories. This gives a philosophical answer to the question of which aspects of a link TQFT make it injective under ribbon concordances.