The twisted torus knots K(p, q; r, s) are obtained by performing a sequence of s full twists on r adjacent strands of (p, q)-torus knots. Morimoto asked whether all twisted torus knots with essential tori in the exterior fit into one of two families. We prove that the answer to this question is no, by finding two different new families of toroidal twisted torus knots.
We give a topological characterisation of alternating knot exteriors based on the presence of special spanning surfaces. This shows that alternating is a topological property of the knot exterior and not just a property of diagrams, answering an old question of Fox. We also give a characterisation of alternating link exteriors which have marked meridians. We then describe a normal surface algorithm which can decide if a knot is prime and alternating given a triangulation of its exterior as input.
We show the existence of infinitely many knot exteriors where each of which contains meridional essential surfaces of any genus and (even) number of boundary components. That is, the compact surfaces that have a meridional essential embedding into a knot exterior have a meridional essential embedding into each of these knot exteriors. From these results, we also prove the existence of a hyperbolic knot exterior in some 3-manifold for which there are meridional essential surfaces of independently unbounded genus and number of boundary components.
We show the existence of an infinite collection of hyperbolic knots where each of which has in its exterior meridional essential planar surfaces of arbitrarily large number of boundary components, or, equivalently, that each of these knots has essential tangle decompositions of arbitrarily large number of strings. Moreover, each of these knots has in its exterior meridional essential surfaces of any positive genus and (even) number of boundary components. That is, the compact surfaces that have a meridional essential embedding into a hyperbolic knot exterior have meridional essential embedding…
In contrast to classical knots, the knot type of a genus two handlebody-knot is not determined by its exterior, and it is often a challenging task to distinguish handlebody-knots with homeomorphic exteriors. The present paper considers an invariant (the annulus diagram), defined via Johannson's characteristic submanifold theory and the Koda-Ozawa classification for essential annuli, and demonstrates its capability to distinguish such handlebody-knots; particularly, the annulus diagram is able to differentiate members in the handlebody-knot families given by Motto and Lee-Lee.
We prove for a large class of knots that the meridional rank coincides with the bridge number. This class contains all knots whose exterior is a graph manifold. This gives a partial answer to a question of S. Cappell and J. Shaneson, see problem 1.11 on Kirby's list.
In this paper, we describe the relation between the study of closed connected surfaces embedded in $S^3$ and the theory of handlebody-knots. By Fox's theorem, a pair of handlebody-knots is associated to a closed connected surface embedded in $S^3$ in the sense that their exterior components are pairwise homeomorphic. We show that for every handlebody-knot pair associated to a genus two "prime bi-knotted" surface, one is irreducible, and the other is reducible. Furthermore, for given two genus two handlebody-knots $H_1$ and $H_2$ satisfying certain conditions, we will construct a "prime bi-knot…
In this paper, we show that, for each non-trivial two bridge knot K and for each g > 2, every genus g Heegaard splitting of the exterior E(K) of K is reducible.
A knot K is called a 1-genus 1-bridge knot in a 3-manifold M if (M,K) has a Heegaard splitting (V_1,t_1)\cup (V_2,t_2) where V_i is a solid torus and t_i is a boundary parallel arc properly embedded in V_i. If the exterior of a knot has a genus 2 Heegaard splitting, we say that the knot has an unknotting tunnel. Naturally the exterior of a 1-genus 1-bridge knot K allows a genus 2 Heegaard splitting, i.e., K has an unknotting tunnel. But, in general, there are unknotting tunnels which are not derived form this procedure. Some of them may be levelled with the torus \partial V_1=\partial V_2, who…
In this article, we prove that a tunnel number two knot induces a critical Heegaard splitting in its exterior if there are two weak reducing pairs such that each weak reducing pair contains the cocore disk of each tunnel. Moreover, we prove that a connected sum of two 2-bridge knots or more generally that of two $(1,1)$-knots can induce a critical Heegaard splitting in its exterior as the examples of the main theorem. Finally, we give an equivalent condition for a weak reducing pair to be determined by a compressing disk uniquely when the manifold is closed, irreducible and the Heegaard splitt…
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 study the way a strongly irreducible Heegaard surface $Σ$ intersects a knot exterior $X$ embedded in a 3-manifold, and show that if $Σ\cap \partial X$ consists of simple closed curves which are essential in both $Σ$ and $\partial X$, then the intersection $X \cap Σ$ consists of meridional annuli only. As an application we show that when considering two Heegaard surfaces that intersect essentially and spinally (cf. Rubinstein and Shcarlemann) any embedded torus in the union of the two bounds a solid torus.
A knot K in a closed connected orientable 3-manifold M is called a 1-genus 1-bridge knot if (M,K) has a splitting into two pairs of a solid torus V_i (i=1,2) and a boundary parallel arc in it. The splitting induces a genus two Heegaard splitting of the exterior of K naturally, i.e., K has an unknotting tunnel. However the converse is not true in general. Then we study such general case in this paper. One of the conclusions is that the unknotting tunnel may be levelled with the torus \partial V_1=\partial V_2.
Given integers g_i > 1 (i=1,...,n) we prove that there exist infinitely may knots K_i in S^3 so that g(E(K_i)) = g_i and the Heegaard genus of the exterior of the connected sum of K_1,...,K_n is the sum the Heegaard genera of K_1,...,K_n, that is: g(E(K_1#...#K_n)) = g(E(K_1)) +...+ g(E(K_n)). (Here, E() denotes the exterior and g() the Heegaard genus.) Together with Theorem 1.5 of [1], this proves the existence of counterexamples to Morimoto's Conjecture (Conjecture 1.5 of [2]). [1] Tsuyoshi Kobayashi and Yo'av Rieck. On the growth rate of the tunnel number of knots. J. Reine Angew. Math., 59…
Let $K_1, K_2$ be two knots with $t(K_1)+t(K_2)>2$ and $t(K_1 # K_2)=2$. Then, in the present paper, we will show that any genus three Heegaard splittings of $E(K_1 # K_2)$ is strongly irreducible and that $E(K_1 # K_2)$ has at most four genus three Heegaard splittings up to homeomorphism. Moreover, we will give a complete classification of those four genus three Heegaard splittings and show unknotting tunnel systems of knots $K_1 # K_2$ corresponding to those Heegaard splittings.
The goal of this paper is to offer a comprehensive exposition of the current knowledge about Heegaard splittings of exteriors of knots in the 3-sphere. The exposition is done with a historical perspective as to how ideas developed and by whom. Several new notions are introduced and some facts about them are proved. In particular the concept of a 1/n-primitive meridian. It is then proved that if a knot K in S^3 has a 1/n-primitive meridian; then nK = K#...#K, n-times has a Heegaard splitting of genus nt(K) + n which has a 1-primitive meridian. That is, nK is mu-primitive.
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 all possible R-R diagrams of two disjoint simple closed curves $R$ and $β$ lying in the boundary of a genus two handlebody $H$ up to equivalence such that $β$ is a proper power curve and a 2-handle addition $H[R]$ along $R$ embeds in $S^3$ so that $H[R]$ is the exterior of a tunnel-number-one knot. As a consequence, if $R$ is a nonseparating simple closed curve on the boundary of a genus two handlebody such that $H[R]$ embeds…
The only knots that are tunnel number one and genus one are those that are already known: 2-bridge knots obtained by plumbing together two unknotted annuli and the satellite examples classified by Eudave-Munoz and by Morimoto-Sakuma. This confirms a conjecture first made by Goda and Teragaito.
Little is known on the classification of Heegaard splittings for hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Although Kobayashi gave a complete classification of Heegaard splittings for the exteriors of 2-bridge knots, our knowledge of other classes is extremely limited. In particular, there are very few hyperbolic manifolds that are known to have a unique minimal genus splitting. Here we demonstrate that an infinite class of hyperbolic knot exteriors, namely exteriors of certain "twisted torus knots" originally studied by Morimoto, Sakuma and Yokota, have a unique minimal genus Heegaard splitting of genus two. W…
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 …
Let $X$ be the exterior of connected sum of knots and $X_i$ the exteriors of the individual knots. In \cite{morimoto1} Morimoto conjectured (originally for $n=2$) that $g(X) < σ_{i=1}^n g(X_i)$ if and only if there exists a so-called \em primitive meridian \em in the exterior of the connected sum of a proper subset of the knots. For m-small knots we prove this conjecture and bound the possible degeneration of the Heegaard genus (this bound was previously achieved by Morimoto under a weak assumption \cite{morimoto2}): $$σ_{i=1}^n g(X_i) - (n-1) \leq g(X) \leq σ_{i=1}^n g(X_i).$$
We show that a $(p,q)$-cable of a non-trivial knot $K$ does not admit chirally cosmetic surgery for $q\neq 2$, or $q=2$ with additional assumptions. In particular, we show that $(p,q)$-cable of non-trivial knot $K$ does not admit chirally cosmetic surgery as long as the JSJ piece of knot exterior does not contain $(2,r)$-torus exterior. We also show that an iterated torus knot other than $(2,p)$-torus knot does not admit chirally cosmetic surgery.
In "Width complexes for knots and 3-manifolds," Jennifer Schultens defines the width complex for a knot in order to understand the different positions a knot can occupy in the 3-sphere and the isotopies between these positions. She poses several questions about these width complexes; in particular, she asks whether the width complex for a knot can have local minima that are not global minima. In this paper, we find an embedding of the unknot that is a local minimum but not a global minimum in its width complex. We use this embedding to exhibit for any knot K infinitely many distinct local mini…
We show that for each pair of positive integers g and n, there are infinitely many tunnel number one knots, whose exteriors contain an essential meridional surface of genus g, and with 2n boundary components. We also show that for each positive integer n, there are tunnel number one knots whose exteriors contain n disjoint, non-parallel, closed incompressible surfaces, each of genus n.
We study the asymptotics of the higher dimensional Reidemeister torsion for torus knot exteriors, which is related to the results by W. Müller and P. Menal-Ferrer and J. Porti on the asymptotics of the Reidemeister torsion and the hyperbolic volumes for hyperbolic 3-manifolds. We show that the sequence of log |the higher dimensional Reidemeister torsion of a torus knot exterior with SL(2N,C)-representation| / (2N)^2 converges to zero when N goes to infinity. We also give a classification for SL(2,C)-representations of torus knot groups, which induce acyclic SL(2N,C)-representations.
A knot is a circle piecewise-linearly embedded into the 3-sphere. The topology of a knot is intimately related to that of its exterior, which is the complement of an open regular neighborhood of the knot. Knots are typically encoded by planar diagrams, whereas their exteriors, which are compact 3-manifolds with torus boundary, are encoded by triangulations. Here, we give the first practical algorithm for finding a diagram of a knot given a triangulation of its exterior. Our method applies to links as well as knots, allows us to recover links with hundreds of crossings. We use it to find the fi…
If a rectangular diagram represents the trivial knot, then it can be deformed into the trivial rectangular diagram with only four edges by a finite sequence of merge operations and exchange operations, without increasing the number of edges, which was shown by I. A. Dynnikov. Using this, Henrich and Kauffman gave an upper bound for the number of Reidemeister moves needed for unknotting a knot diagram of the trivial knot. However, exchange or merge moves on the top and bottom pairs of edges of rectangular diagrams are not considered in the proof. In this paper, we show that there is a rectangul…
We compute the Kauffman bracket skein module of the complement of a twist knot, finding that it is free and infinite dimensional. The basis consists of cables of a two-component link, one component of which is a meridian of the knot. The cabling of the meridian can be arbitrarily large while the cabling of the other component is limited to the number of twists.
We describe a procedure for creating infinite families of hyperbolic knots having unique minimal genus Seifert surface. A large subset of these knots have the further property that the surface cannot be the sole compact leaf of a depth one foliation of the knot exterior.
We exhibit an algorithm to determine the bridge number of a hyperbolic knot in the 3-sphere. The proof uses adaptations of almost normal surface theory for compact surfaces with boundary in ideally triangulated knot exteriors.
Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford(牛津大学数学研究所);School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland(昆士兰大学数理学院);School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne(墨尔本大学数理统计学院);School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney(悉尼大学数理统计学院);School of Mathematics, Monash University(蒙纳士大学数学学院)
We show that a finite numerical boundary slope of an essential surface in the exterior of a Montesinos knot is bounded above and below in terms of the numbers of positive/negative crossings of a specific minimal diagram of the knot.
In Classical Knot Theory and in the new Theory of Quantum Invariants substantial effort was directed toward the search for unknotting moves on links. We solve, in this note, several classical problems concerning unknotting moves. Our approach uses a new concept, Burnside groups of links, which establishes unexpected relationship between Knot Theory and Group Theory. Our method has the potential to be used in computational biology in the analysis of DNA via tangle embedding theory, as developed by D.W.Sumners.
In this article, we give an explicit formula to compute the non-abelian twisted sign-determined Reidemeister torsion of the exterior of a fibered knot in terms of its monodromy. As an application, we give explicit formulae for the non abelian Reidemeister torsion of torus knots and of the figure eight knot.
We show that if a knot or link has n thin levels when put in thin position then its exterior contains a collection of n disjoint, non-parallel, planar, meridional, essential surfaces. A corollary is that there are at least n/3 tetrahedra in any triangulation of the complement of such a knot.
This article is an English translation of Japanese article "Musubime to Kyokumen", Math. Soc. Japan, Sugaku Vol. 67, No. 4 (2015) 403--423. It surveys a specific area in Knot Theory concerning surfaces in knot exteriors. In version 2, we added comments on the solutions or counterexamples for Conjecture 3.5, Conjecture 3.7 and Conjecture 5.30.
A knot is an a-small knot if its exterior does not contain closed incompressible surfaces disjoint from some incompressible Seifert surface for the knot. Using circular thin position for knots we prove that the handle number is additive under the connected sum of two a-small knots. As a consequence the Morse-Novikov number turns out to be additive under the connected sum of two a-small knots.
We study the structure of the exteriors of gropes and Whitney towers in dimension 4, focusing on their fundamental groups. In particular we introduce a notion of unknottedness of gropes and Whitney towers in the 4-sphere. We prove that various modifications of gropes and Whitney towers preserve the unknottedness and do not enlarge the fundamental group. We exhibit handlebody structures of the exteriors of gropes and Whitney towers constructed by earlier methods of Cochran, Teichner, Horn, and the first author, and use them to construct examples of unknotted gropes and Whitney towers. As an app…
Let K be a knot in a closed orientable irreducible 3-manifold M and let P be a Heegaard splitting of the knot complement of genus at least two. Suppose Q is a bridge surface for K. Then either \begin{itemize} \item $d(P)\leq 2-χ(Q-K)$, or \item K can be isotoped to be disjoint from Q so that after the isotopy Q is a Heegaard surface for the knot exterior and is isotopic to a possibly stabilized copy of P. \end{itemize}
For a compact oriented 3-manifold with torus boundary the adjoint Reidemeister torsion is defined as a function on the $\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})$-character variety depending on a choice of a boundary curve. Under reasonable assumptions, it is conjectured that the adjoint torsion satisfies a certain type of vanishing identities. In this paper, we prove that the conjecture holds for all hyperbolic twist knot exteriors by using Jacobi's residue theorem.
In a classic paper Zeeman introduced the k-twist spin of a knot K and showed that the exterior of a twist spin fibers over S^1. In particular this result shows that the knot K # -K is doubly slice. In this paper we give a quick proof of Zeeman's result. The k-twist spin of K also gives rise to two metabolizers for K # -K and we determine these two metabolizers precisely.
A knot k in a closed orientable 3-manifold is called nonsimple if the exterior of k possesses a properly embedded essential surface of nonnegative Euler characteristic. We show that if k is a nonsimple prime tunnel number one knot in a lens space M (where M does not contain any embedded Klein bottles), then k is a (1,1) knot. Elements of the proof include handle addition and Dehn filling results/techniques of Jaco, Eudave-Munoz and Gordon as well as structure results of Schultens on the Heegaard splittings of graph manifolds.
In this paper, we conjecture a connection between the $A$-polynomial of a knot in $\mathbb{S}^{3}$ and the hyperbolic volume of its exterior $\mathcal{M}_{K}$ : the knots with zero hyperbolic volume are exactly the knots with an $A$-polynomial where every irreducible factor is the sum of two monomials in $L$ and $M$. Herein, we show the forward implication and examine cases that suggest the converse may also be true. Since the $A$-polynomial of hyperbolic knots are known to have at least one irreducible factor which is not the sum of two monomials in $L$ and $M$, this paper considers satellite…
In this paper we use twisted Alexander polynomials to prove that the exterior of a particular graph knot is not fibered. Then we build three 2-component graph links out of this knot, and use similar techniques to discuss their fiberedness.
In this paper we study exceptional Dehn fillings on hyperbolic knot manifolds which contain an essential once-punctured torus. Let $M$ be such a knot manifold and let $β$ be the boundary slope of such an essential once-punctured torus. We prove that if Dehn filling $M$ with slope $α$ produces a Seifert fibred manifold, then $Δ(α,β)\leq 5$. Furthermore we classify the triples $(M; α,β)$ when $\D(α,β)\geq 4$. More precisely, when $\D(α,β)=5$, then $M$ is the (unique) manifold $Wh(-3/2)$ obtained by Dehn filling one boundary component of the Whitehead link exterior with slope -3/2, and $(α, β)$ i…
Let $K= K(w,b,t)$ be a 1-bridge braid in a solid torus $V$, and let $γ$ be a $(p,q)$ curve on the torus $T = \partial V$ of the exterior $M_K$ of $K$. It will be shown that Dehn filling on $T$ along $γ$ produces a solid torus if and only if $p$ and $q$ satisfy one of four conditions determined by the parameters $(w,b,t)$ of the knot $K$. This solves the classification problem raised by Menasco and Zhang for such Dehn fillings.
In this paper, we construct the first families of distinct Lagrangian ribbon disks in the standard symplectic 4-ball which have the same boundary Legendrian knots, and are not smoothly isotopic or have non-homeomorphic exteriors.