We prove that knots obtained by attaching a band to a split link satisfy the cabling conjecture. We also give new proofs that unknotting number one knots are prime and that genus is superadditive under band sum. Additionally, we prove a collection of results comparing two 2-handle additions to a genus two boundary component of a compact, orientable 3-manifold. These results give a near complete solution to a conjecture of Scharlemann and provide evidence for a conjecture of Scharlemann and Wu. The proofs make use of a new theorem concerning the effects of attaching a 2-handle to a suture in the boundary of a sutured manifold.
A handlebody link is a union of handlebodies of positive genus embedded in 3-space, which generalizes the notion of links in classical knot theory. In this paper, we consider handlebody links with one genus 2 handlebody and $n-1$ solid tori, $n>1$. Our main result is the complete classification of such handlebody links with six crossings or less, up to ambient isotopy.
We determine the structure of the circular handle decompositions of the family of free genus one knots. Namely, if k is a free genus one knot, then the handle number h(k)= 0, 1 or 2, and, if k is not fibered (that is, if h(k)>0), then k is almost fibered. For this, we develop practical techniques to construct circular handle decompositions of knots with free Seifert surfaces in the 3-sphere (and compute handle numbers of many knots), and, also, we characterize the free genus one knots with more than one Seifert surface. These results are obtained through analysis of spines of surfaces on handl…
Embeddings of pairs of disjoint nonparallel primitive simple closed curves in the boundary of a genus two handlebody are classified. Briefly, two disjoint primitives either lie on opposite ends of a product $F \boldsymbol{\times} I$, or they lie on opposite ends of a kind of "twisted" product $F \widetilde{\boldsymbol{\times}} I$, where $F$ is a once-punctured torus. If one of the curves is a proper power of a primitive, the situation is simpler. Either the curves lie on opposite sides of a separating disk in the handlebody, or they bound a nonseparating essential annulus in the handlebody.
Suppose a genus two handlebody is removed from a 3-manifold M and then a single meridian of the handlebody is restored. The result is a knot or link complement in M and it is natural to ask whether geometric properties of the link complement say something about the meridian that was restored. Here we consider what the relation must be between two not necessarily disjoint meridians so that restoring each of them gives a trivial knot or a split link.
Let M be a closed, irreducible, genus two 3-manifold, and F a maximal collection of pairwise disjoint, closed, orientable, incompressible surfaces embedded in M. Then each component manifold M_i of M-F has handle number at most one, i.e. admits a Heegaard splitting obtained by attaching a single 1-handle to one or two components of boundary M_i. This result also holds for a decomposition of M along a maximal collection of incompressible tori.
We study the existence of incompressible embeddings of surfaces into the genus two handlebody. We show that for every compact surface with boundary, orientable or not, there is an incompressible embedding of the surface into the genus two handlebody. In the orientable case the embedding can be either separating or non-separating. We also consider the case in which the genus two handlebody is replaced by an orientable 3-manifold with a compressible boundary component of genus greater than or equal to two.
A simple closed curve $α$ in the boundary of a genus two handlebody $H$ is primitive if adding a 2-handle to $H$ along $α$ yields a solid torus. If adding a 2-handle to $H$ along $α$ yields a Seifert-fibered space and not a solid torus, the curve is called Seifert. If $α$ is disjoint from an essential separating disk in $H$, does not bound a disk in $H$, and is not primitive in $H$, then it is said to be proper power. As one of the background papers of the classification project of hyperbolic primitive/Seifert knots in $S^3$ whose complete list is given in [BK20], this paper classifies in term…
Let $M$ be a closed orientable 3-manifold with a genus two Heegaard splitting $(V_1, V_2; F)$ and a non-trivial JSJ-decomposition, where all components of the intersection of the JSJ-tori and $V_i$ are not $\partial$-parallel in $V_i$ for $i=1,2$. If $G$ is a finite group of orientation-preserving smooth actions on $M$ which preserves each handlebody of the Heegaard splitting and each piece of the JSJ-decomposition of $M$, then $G\cong \mathbb{Z}_2$ or $\mathbb{D}_2$ unless $V_j\cap(\cup T_i)$ has three or more disk components for $j=1$ or 2.
We compare the values of the nonorientable three genus (or, crosscap number) and the nonorientable four genus of torus knots. In particular, let T(p,q) be any torus knot with p even and q odd. The difference between these two invariants on T(p,q) is at least k/2, where p = qk + a and 0 < a < q and $k\geq 0$. Hence, the difference between the two invariants on torus knots T(p,q) grows arbitrarily large for any fixed odd q, as p ranges over values of a fixed congruence class modulo q. This contrasts with the orientable setting. Seifert proved that the orientable three genus of the torus knot T(p…
We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a simple closed curve on the boundary of a genus two handlebody to decompose the handlebody into (torus with one boundary component times [0,1]. We use this condition to decide whether a simple closed curve on a genus two Heegaard surface is a GOF-knot (genus one fibered knot) which induces the Heegaard splitting. By using this, we determine the number and the positions with respect to the Heegaard splittings of GOF-knots in the 3-manifolds with reducible genus two Heegaard splittings. This is another proof of results of Morimoto and Baker.
A recent result of Funayoshi-Koda shows that a handlebody-knot of genus two has a finite symmetry group if and only if it is hyperbolic -- the exterior admits a hyperbolic structure with totally geodesic boundary -- or irreducible, atoroidal, cylindrical -- the exterior contains no essential disks or tori but contains an essential annulus. Based on the Koda-Ozawa classification theorem, essential annuli in an irreducible, atoroidal handlebody-knots of genus two are classified into four classes: type $2$, type $3$-$2$, type $3$-$3$ and type $4$-$1$. We show that under mild condition most genus …
By Thurston's hyperbolization theorem, irreducible handlebody-knots are classified into three classes: hyperbolic, toroidal, and atoroidal cylindrical. It is known that a non-trivial handlebody-knot of genus two has a finite symmetry group if and only if it is atoroidal. The paper investigates the topology of cylindrical handlebody-knots of genus two that admit an unknotting annulus; we show that the symmetry group is trivial if the unknotting annulus is unique and of type $2$.
We consider the group of isotopy classes of automorphisms of the 3-sphere that preserve a spatial graph or a handlebody-knot embedded in it. We prove that the group is finitely presented for an arbitrary spatial graph or a reducible handlebody-knot of genus two. We also prove that the groups for "most" irreducible genus two handlebody-knots are finite.
We give examples of knots in a genus 2 handlebody which have nontrivial Dehn surgeries yielding handlebodies and show that these knots are not 1--bridge.
We construct a small, hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$ such that, for any integer $g\geq 2$, there are infinitely many separating slopes $r$ in $\partial M$ so that $M(r)$, the 3-manifold obtained by attaching a 2-handle to $M$ along $r$, is hyperbolic and contains an essential separating closed surface of genus $g$. The result contrasts sharply with those known finiteness results on Dehn filling, and it also contrasts sharply with the known finiteness result on handle addition for the cases $g=0,1$. Our 3-manifold $M$ is the complement of a hyperbolic, small knot in a handlebody of genus 3.
The slice-Bennequin inequality states an upper bound for the self-linking number of a knot in terms of its four-ball genus. The $s$-Bennequin and $τ$-Bennequin inequalities provide upper bounds on the self-linking number of a knot in terms of the Rasmussen $s$ invariant and the Ozsváth-Szabó $τ$ invariant. We exhibit examples in which the difference between self-linking number and four-ball genus grows arbitrarily large, whereas the $s$-Bennequin inequality and the $τ$-Bennequin inequality are both sharp.
A Seifert surface F for a knot K is free if the complement of F is a handlebody (i.e., has free fundamental group). The free genus of K is the minimum genus among all free Seifert surfaces for K. In this paper we show that there exist families of hyperbolic knots with arbitrarily large volume, which each have free genus one. This implies that there are knots with free genus one but arbitrarily large canonical genus, and that there exist knots admitting incompressible free Seifert surfaces which cannot be built by applying Seifert's algorithm to a projection of the knot.
The classification of finite group-actions on closed surfaces of small genus is well-known. In the present paper we are interested in the question of which of these group-actions are bounding (extend to a compact 3-manifold with the surface as its unique boundary component, e.g. to a handlebody) or geometrically bounding (extend to a hyperbolic 3-manifold with totally geodesic boundary), concentrating, as a typical case, on large group-actions on surfaces of genus 3.
We show that a handlebody-knot whose exterior is boundary-irreducible has a unique maximal unnested set of knotted handle decomposing spheres up to isotopies and annulus-moves. As an application, we show that the handlebody-knots $6_{14}$ and $6_{15}$ are not equivalent. We also show that some genus two handlebody-knots with a knotted handle decomposing sphere can be determined by their exteriors. As an application, we show that the exteriors of $6_{14}$ and $6_{15}$ are not homeomorphic.
We survey known (and unknown) results about the behavior of Heegaard genus of 3-manifolds constructed via various gluings. The constructions we consider are (1) gluing together two 3-manifolds with incompressible boundary, (2) gluing together the boundary components of surface times I, and (3) gluing a handlebody to the boundary of a 3-manifold. We detail those cases in which it is known when the Heegaard genus is less than what is expected after gluing.
Let $M$ be a $3$--dimensional handlebody of genus $g$. This paper gives examples of hyperbolic knots in $M$ with arbitrarily large genus $g$ bridge number which admit Dehn surgeries which are boundary-reducible manifolds.
The Heegaard genus g of an irreducible closed orientable 3-manifold puts a limit on the number and complexity of the pieces that arise in the Jaco-Shalen-Johannson decomposition of the manifold by its canonical tori. For example, if p of the complementary components are not Seifert fibered, then p < g. This result generalizes work of Kobayashi. The Heegaard genus g also puts explicit bounds on the complexity of the Seifert pieces. For example, if the union of the base spaces of the Seifert pieces has Euler characteristic X and there are a total of f exceptional fibers in the Seifert pieces, th…
Let $M$ be a simple 3-manifold, and $F$ be a component of $\partial M$ of genus at least 2. Let $α$ and $β$ be separating slopes on $F$. Let $M(α)$ (resp. $M(β)$) be the manifold obtained by adding a 2-handle along $α$ (resp. $β$). If $M(α)$ and $M(β)$ are $\partial$-reducible, then the minimal geometric intersection number of $α$ and $β$ is at most 8.
Let $M$ be a simple manifold, and $F$ be a component of $\partial M$ of genus two. For a slope $γ$ on $F$, we denote by $M(γ)$ the manifold obtained by attaching a 2-handle to $M$ along a regular neighborhood of $γ$ on $F$. In this paper, we shall prove that there is at most one separating slope $γ$ on $F$ so that $M(γ)$ is $\partial$-reducible.
The idea of studying trisections of closed smooth $4$-manifolds via (singular) triangulations, endowed with a suitable vertex-labelling by three colors, is due to Bell, Hass, Rubinstein and Tillmann, and has been applied by Spreer and Tillmann to colored triangulations associated to the so called simple crystallizations of standard simply-connected $4$-manifolds. The present paper performs a generalization of these ideas along two different directions: first, we take in consideration also compact PL $4$-manifolds with connected boundary, introducing a possible extension of trisections to the b…
We prove a conjecture of Menasco and Zhang that if a tangle is completely tubing compressible then it consists of at most two families of parallel strands. This is related to problems of graphs in 3-manifold. A 1-vertex graph $Γ$ in a 3-manifold $M$ with a genus 1 Heegaard splitting is standard if it consists of one or two parallel sets of core curves lying in the Heegaard splitting solid tori of $M$ in the standard way. The above conjecture then follows from the theorem which says that a 1-vertex graph in $M$ is standard if and only if the exteriors of all its nontrivial subgraphs are handleb…
We construct a hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$ (with $\partial M$ totally geodesic) which contains no essential closed surfaces, but for any even integer $g> 0$ there are infinitely many separating slopes $r$ on $\partial M$ so that $M[r]$, the 3-manifold obtained by attaching 2-handle to $M$ along $r$, contains an essential separating closed surface of genus $g$ and is still hyperbolic. The result contrasts sharply with those known finiteness results for the cases $g=0,1$. Our 3-manifold $M$ is the complement of a simple small knot in a handlebody.
In this paper we study colored triangulations of compact PL 4-manifolds with empty or connected boundary which induce handle decompositions lacking in 1-handles or in 1- and 3-handles, thus facing also the problem, posed by Kirby, of the existence of {\it special handlebody decompositions} for any simply-connected closed PL 4-manifold. In particular, we detect a class of compact simply-connected PL 4-manifolds with empty or connected boundary, which admit such decompositions and, therefore, can be represented by (undotted) framed links. Moreover, this class includes any compact simply-connecte…
In 2015, Chen and Yang proposed a volume conjecture that stated that certain Turaev-Viro invariants of an hyperbolic 3-manifold should grow exponentially with a rate equal to the hyperbolic volume. Since then, this conjecture has been proven or numerically tested for several hyperbolic 3-manifolds, either closed or with boundary, the boundary being either a family of tori or a family of higher genus surfaces. The current paper now provides new numerical checks of this volume conjecture for 3-manifolds with one toroidal boundary component and one geodesic boundary component. More precisely, we …
Attaching a 2-handle to a genus two or greater boundary component of a 3-manifold is a natural generalization of Dehn filling a torus boundary component. We prove that there is an interesting relationship between an essential surface in a sutured 3-manifold, the number of intersections between the boundary of the surface and one of the sutures, and the cocore of the 2-handle in the manifold after attaching a 2-handle along the suture. We use this result to show that tunnels for tunnel number one knots or links in any 3-manifold can be isotoped to lie on a branched surface corresponding to a ce…
The main theorem of this paper generalizes recent results in Dehn surgery to the case of handlebody attachment. We consider attaching handlebodies and solid tori to the boundary of an irreducible, boundary-irreducible, atoroidal and acylindrical 3-manifold. We show that for a large class of homeomorphisms attaching these handlebodies, the fundamental group of the resulting manifold contains the fundamental group of a closed surface of genus at least two.
This paper studies the question of whether minimal genus Heegaard splittings of exterior spaces of knots which are connected sums are weakly reducible or not. Furthermore it is shown that the Heegaard splittings of the knots used by Morimoto to show that tunnel number can be sub-additive are all strongly irreducible. These are the first examples of strongly irreducible minimal genus Heegaard splittings of composite knots. We also give a characterization of when is a set of primitive annuli on a handlebody simultaneously primitive. This characterization is different from that given in [Go].
A Seifert surface F for a knot K is disk decomposable if there is a taut sutured manifold heirarchy for the complement of F, whose decomposing surfaces are all disks. It follows that F has minimal genus for the knot K, and has handlebody complement, i.e., F is free. We show that these necessary conditions for disk decomposability are not sufficient, by constructing a family of knots with genus one free Seifert surfaces, which are not disk decomposable.
We consider oriented knots and links in a handlebody of genus $g$ through appropriate braid representatives in $S^3$, which are elements of the braid groups $B_{g,n}$. We prove a geometric version of the Markov theorem for braid equivalence in the handlebody, which is based on the $L$-moves. Using this we then prove two algebraic versions of the Markov theorem. The first one uses the $L$-moves. The second one uses the Markov moves and conjugation in the groups $B_{g,n}$. We show that not all conjugations correspond to isotopies.
