We consider irreducible 3-manifolds M that arise as knot complements in closed 3-manifolds and that contain at most two connected strict essential surfaces. The results in the paper relate the boundary slopes of the two surfaces to their genera and numbers of boundary components. Explicit quantitative relationships, with interesting asymptotic properties, are obtained in the case that M is a knot complement in a closed manifold with cyclic fundamental group.
We describe a procedure for creating infinite families of knots, each having the maximum degree of their HOMFLY polynomial strictly less than twice their canonical genus. These families build upon examples first found by Stoimenow.
A quadrisecant line is one which intersects a curve in at least four points, while an essential secant captures something about the knottedness of a knot. This survey article gives a brief history of these ideas, and shows how they may be applied to questions about the geometry of a knot via the total curvature, ropelength and distortion of a knot.
We construct an algorithm that lists all closed essential surfaces in the complement of a knot that lies on the fiber of a trefoil or figure eight knot. Such knots are Berge knots and hence admit lens space surgeries. Furthermore they may have arbitrarily large hyperbolic volume. Using this algorithm we concoct large volume Berge knots of two flavors: those whose complement contains arbitrarily many distinct closed essential surfaces, and those whose complement contains no closed essential surfaces.
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…
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 construct an infinite collection of knots with the property that any knot in this family has $n$-string essential tangle decompositions for arbitrarily high $n$.
We show the existence of infinitely many prime knots each of which having in their complements meridional essential surfaces with two boundary components and arbitrarily high genus.
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.
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 determine all (1,1)-knots which admit an essential meridional surface, namely, we give a construction which produces (1,1)-knots having essential meridional surfaces, and show that if a (1,1)-knot admits an essential meridional surface then it comes from the given construction.
In the complement of a hyperbolic Montesinos knot with 4 rational tangles, we investigate the number of closed, connected, essential, orientable surfaces of a fixed genus $g$, up to isotopy. We show that there are exactly 12 genus 2 surfaces and $8ϕ(g - 1)$ surfaces of genus greater than 2, where $ϕ(g - 1)$ is the Euler totient function of $g - 1$. Observe that this count is independent of the number of crossings of the knot. Moreover, this class of knots form an infinite class of hyperbolic 3-manifolds and the result applies to all such knot complements.
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.
This note gives the first example of a hyperbolic knot in the 3-sphere that lacks a nonorientable essential spanning surface; this disproves the Strong Neuwirth Conjecture formulated by Ozawa and Rubinstein. Moreover, this knot has no even strict boundary slopes, disproving the Even Boundary Slope Conjecture of the same authors. The proof is a rigorous calculation using Thurston's spun-normal surfaces in the spirit of Haken's original normal surface algorithms.
Weights of essential surfaces in 2-bridge knot complements
University of Wisconsin, Madison（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）；Department of Mathematics and Statistics, The College of New Jersey（新泽西学院数学与统计系）；Ignite Fueling Innovation, Inc（Ignite燃料创新公司）
Let K be a tame knot with irreducible exterior M(K) in a closed, connected, orientable 3--manifold Sigma such that pi_1(Sigma) is cyclic. If infinity is not a strict boundary slope, then the diameter of the set of strict boundary slopes of K, denoted d_K, is a numerical invariant of K. We show that either (i) d_K >= 2 or (ii) K is a generalized iterated torus knot. The proof combines results from Culler and Shalen [Comment. Math. Helv. 74 (1999) 530-547] with a result about the effect of cabling on boundary slopes.
We study a canonical spanning surface obtained from a knot or link diagram depending on a given Kauffman state, and give a sufficient condition for the surface to be essential. By using the essential surface, we can see the triviality and splittability of a knot or link from its diagrams. This has been done on the extended knot or link class which includes all of semiadequate, homogeneous, and most of algebraic knots and links. In the process of the proof of main theorem, Gabai's Murasugi sum theorem is extended to the case of nonorientable spanning surfaces.
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 …
In this paper, we consider generalizations of the Alexander polynomial and signature of 2-bridge knots by considering the Gordon-Litherland bilinear forms associated to essential state surfaces of the 2-bridge knots. We show that the resulting invariants are well-defined and explore properties of these invariants. Finally we realize the boundary slopes of the essential surfaces as a difference of signatures of the knot.
Using Hirasawa-Murasugi's classification of fibered Montesinos knots we classify the L-space Montesinos knots, providing further evidence towards a conjecture of Lidman-Moore that L-space knots have no essential Conway spheres. In the process, we classify the fibered Montesinos knots whose open books support the tight contact structure on $S^3$. We also construct L-space knots with arbitrarily large tunnel number and discuss the question of whether L-space knots admit essential tangle decompositions in the context of satellite operations and tunnel number.
We show that if a hyperbolic knot manifold $M$ contains an essential twice-punctured torus $F$ with boundary slope $β$ and admits a filling with slope $α$ producing a Seifert fibred space, then the distance between the slopes $α$ and $β$ is less than or equal to $5$ unless $M$ is the exterior of the figure eight knot. The result is sharp; the bound of $5$ can be realized on infinitely many hyperbolic knot manifolds. We also determine distance bounds in the case that the fundamental group of the $α$-filling contains no non-abelian free group. The proofs are divided into the four cases $F$ is a …
This paper is a brief overview of recent results by the authors relating colored Jones polynomials to geometric topology. The proofs of these results appear in the papers [arXiv:1002.0256] and [arXiv:1108.3370], while this survey focuses on the main ideas and examples.
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…
For a knot K in S^3, let T(K) be the characteristic toric sub-orbifold of the orbifold (S^3,K) as defined by Bonahon and Siebenmann. If K has unknotting number one, we show that an unknotting arc for K can always be found which is disjoint from T(K), unless either K is an EM-knot (of Eudave-Munoz) or (S^3,K) contains an EM-tangle after cutting along T(K). As a consequence, we describe exactly which large algebraic knots (ie algebraic in the sense of Conway and containing an essential Conway sphere) have unknotting number one and give a practical procedure for deciding this (as well as determin…
A knot K is called n-adjacent to another knot K', if K admits a projection containing n generalized crossings such that changing any 0 < m \leq n of them yields a projection of K'. We apply techniques from the theory of sutured 3-manifolds, Dehn surgery and the theory of geometric structures of 3-manifolds to answer the question of the extent to which non-isotopic knots can be adjacent to each other. A consequence of our main result is that if K is n-adjacent to K' for all n, then K and K' are isotopic. This provides a partial verification of the conjecture of V. Vassiliev that the finite type…
We present two different representations of (1,1)-knots and study some connections between them. The first representation is algebraic: every (1,1)-knot is represented by an element of the pure mapping class group of the twice punctured torus. The second representation is parametric: every (1,1)-knot can be represented by a 4-tuple of integer parameters. The strict connection of this representation with the class of Dunwoody manifolds is illustrated. The above representations are explicitly obtained in some interesting cases, including two-bridge knots and torus knots.
We show for an alternating knot the minimal boundary slope of an essential spanning surface is given by the signature plus twice the minimum degree of the Jones polynomial and the maximal boundary slope of an essential spanning surface is given by the signature plus twice the maximum degree of the Jones polynomial. For alternating Montesinos knots, these are the minimal and maximal boundary slopes.
We complete the TOP classification of 2-knots with torsion-free, solvable knot group by showing that fibred 2-knots with closed fibre the Hantzsche-Wendt flat 3-manifold $HW$ are not reflexive, while every fibred 2-knot with closed fibre a $\mathbb{N}il^3$-manifold with base orbifold $S^2(3,3,3)$ is reflexive, and by giving explicit normal forms for the strict weight orbits of normal generators for the groups of all knots in either class. We also determine when the knots are amphicheiral or invertible, and show that the only non-trivial doubly null-concordant knots with such groups are those w…
Neuwirth asked if any non-trivial knot in the 3-sphere can be embedded in a closed surface so that the complement of the surface is a connected essential surface for the knot complement. In this paper, we examine some variations on this question and prove it for all knots up to 11 crossings except for two examples. We also establish the conjecture for all Montesinos knots and for all generalized arborescently alternating knots. For knot exteriors containing closed incompressible surfaces satisfying a simple homological condition, we establish that the knots satisfy the Neuwirth conjecture. If …
In 1982 Louis Kauffman conjectured that if a knot in the 3-sphere is a slice knot then on any Seifert surface for that knot there exists a homologically essential simple closed curve of self-linking zero which is itself a slice knot, or at least has Arf invariant zero. Since that time, considerable evidence has been amassed in support of this conjecture. In particular, many invariants that obstruct a knot from being a slice knot have been explictly expressed in terms of invariants of such curves on the Seifert surface. We give counterexamples to Kauffman's conjecture, that is, we exhibit (smoo…
A persistent lamination for a knot K is an essential lamination in the complement of K, which remains essential after every non-trivial Dehn surgery along K. Having a persistent lamination implies, for example, that every manifold obtained by non-trivial Dehn surgery along K has universal cover R^3. In this paper we present a method for building persistent laminations for knots from an incompressible Seifert surface for some `parent' knot. Using this construction, we can, for example, currently build persistent laminations for approximately 45 percent of the knots in the standard knot tables; …
It is shown that there exist alternating non-Montesinos knots whose essential spanning surfaces with maximal and minimal boundary slopes are not realised by the checkerboard surfaces coming from a reduced alternating planar diagram.
In this paper, we characterize closed incompressible surfaces of genus two in the complements of 3-bridge knots and links. This characterization includes that of essential 2-string tangle decompositions for 3-bridge knots and links.
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.
In this paper, we demonstrate that the complete hyperbolic structure of various two-bridge knots and links cannot be deformed to an inequivalent strictly convex projective structure. We also prove a complementary result showing that under certain rigidity hypotheses, branched covers of amphicheiral knots admit non-trivial, strictly convex deformations near their complete hyperbolic structure.
We consider the question of how many essential Seifert Klein bottles with common boundary slope a knot in S^3 can bound, up to ambient isotopy. We prove that any hyperbolic knot in S^3 bounds at most six Seifert Klein bottles with a given boundary slope. The Seifert Klein bottles in a minimal projection of hyperbolic pretzel knots of length 3 are shown to be unique and pi_1-injective, with surgery along their boundary slope producing irreducible toroidal manifolds. The cable knots which bound essential Seifert Klein bottles are classified; their Seifert Klein bottles are shown to be non-pi_1-i…
We fix a null-homologous, homotopically essential knot $J$ in a 3-manifold with PTFA fundamental group and study concordance of knots that are homotopic to $J$. We construct an infinite family of knots that are characteristic to $J$, and then use $L^2$-methods to show that they are not concordant to $J$.
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.
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.
We show that the distance of a link $K$ with respect to a bridge surface of any genus determines a lower bound on the genus of essential surfaces and Heegaard surfaces in the manifolds that result from non-trivial Dehn surgeries on the knot. In particular, knots with high bridge distance do not admit non-trivial non-hyperbolic surgeries or non-trivial cosmetic surgeries. We further show that if a knot has bridge distance at least 3 then its bridge number is bounded above by a function of Seifert genus, or indeed by the genus of (almost) any essential surface or Heegaard surface in the surgered…
We investigate the question of when distinct branched surfaces in the complement of a 2-bridge knot support essential surfaces with identical boundary slopes. We determine all instances in which this occurs and identify an infinite family of knots for which no boundary slopes are repeated.
We prove that if $K_1 \subset M_1,...,K_n \subset M_n$ are m-small knots in closed orientable 3-manifolds then the Heegaard genus of $E(#_{i=1}^n K_i)$ is strictly less than the sum of the Heegaard genera of the $E(K_i)$ ($i=1,...,n$) if and only if there exists a proper subset $I$ of $\{1,...,n\}$ so that $#_{i \in I} K_i$ admits a primitive meridian. This generalizes the main result of Morimoto in \cite{morimoto1}.
In this paper, two lower bounds on the diameters of the boundary slope sets are given for Montesinos knots. One is described in terms of the minimal crossing numbers of the knots, and the other is related to the Euler characteristics of essential surfaces with the maximal/minimal boundary slopes.
We determine the set of all genus g bridge numbers of many iterated torus knots, listing these numbers in a sequence called the bridge spectrum. In addition, we prove a structural lemma about the decomposition of a strongly irreducible bridge surface induced by cutting along a collection of essential surfaces.
In this paper, we use normal surface theory to study Dehn filling on a knot-manifold. First, it is shown that there is a finite computable set of slopes on the boundary of a knot-manifold that bound normal and almost normal surfaces in a one-vertex triangulation of that knot-manifold. This is combined with existence theorems for normal and almost normal surfaces to construct algorithms to determine precisely which manifolds obtained by Dehn filling: 1) are reducible, 2) contain two--sided incompressible surfaces, 3) are Haken, 4) fiber over the circle, 5) are the 3--sphere, and 6) are a lens s…
Using the Hatcher-Oertel algorithm for finding boundary slopes of Montesinos knots, we prove the Slope Conjecture and the Strong Slope Conjecture for a family of 3-tangle pretzel knots. More precisely, we prove that the maximal degrees of the colored Jones polynomial of such knots determine a boundary slope as predicted by the Slope Conjecture, and that the linear term in the degrees correspond to the Euler characteristic of an essential surface.
For a hyperbolic link complement with a triangulation, there are hyperbolicity equations of the triangulation, which guarantee the hyperbolic structure of the link complement. In this paper, we explain that the number of the essential solutions of the equations is equal to or bigger than the extension degree of the invariant trace field of the link. On the other hand, Yokota suggested a potential function of a hyperbolic knot, which gives the hyperbolicity equations and the complex volume of the knot. Applying the fact above to his theory, we explain that the potential function also gives all …
We present a new, practical algorithm to test whether a knot complement contains a closed essential surface. This property has important theoretical and algorithmic consequences; however, systematically testing it has until now been infeasibly slow, and current techniques only apply to specific families of knots. As a testament to its practicality, we run the algorithm over a comprehensive body of 2979 knots, including the two 20-crossing dodecahedral knots, yielding results that were not previously known. The algorithm derives from the original Jaco-Oertel framework, involves both enumeration…
M. Scharlemann has recently proved that any genus one tunnel number one knot is either a satellite or 2-bridge knot, as conjectured by H. Goda and M. Teragaito; all such knots admit a (1,1) decomposition. In this paper we give a classification of the family of (1,1) knots in $S^3$ with crosscap number two (i.e., bounding an essential once-punctured Klein bottle).
Abby Thompson proved that if a link $K$ is in thin position but not in bridge position then the knot complement contains an essential meridional planar surface, and she asked whether some thin level surface must be essential. This note is to give a positive answer to this question, showing that the if a link is in thin position but not bridge position then a thinnest level surface is essential. A theorem of Rieck and Sedgwick follows as a consequence, which says that thin position of a connected sum of small knots comes in the obvious way.
We show that the integer homology sphere obtained by splicing two nontrivial knot complements in integer homology sphere L-spaces has Heegaard Floer homology rank strictly greater than one. In particular, splicing the complements of nontrivial knots in the 3-sphere never produces an L-space. The proof uses bordered Floer homology.
