Let K be a knot in S^3 of genus g and let n>0. We show that if rk HFK(K,g) < 2^{n+1} (where HFK denotes knot Floer homology), in particular if K is an alternating knot such that the leading coefficient a_g of its Alexander polynomial satisfies |a_g| <2^{n+1}, then K has at most n pairwise disjoint non-isotopic genus g Seifert surfaces. For n=1 this implies that K has a unique minimal genus Seifert surface up to isotopy.
In this paper we find a family of knots with trivial Alexander polynomial, and construct two non-isotopic Seifert surfaces for each member in our family. In order to distinguish the surfaces we study the sutured Floer homology invariants of the sutured manifolds obtained by cutting the knot complements along the Seifert surfaces. Our examples provide the first use of sutured Floer homology, and not merely its Euler characteristic(a classical torsion), to distinguish Seifert surfaces. Our technique uses a version of Floer homology, called Longitude Floer Homology in a way that enables us to byp…
We study the sutured Floer homology invariants of the sutured manifold obtained by cutting a knot complement along a Seifert surface, R. We show that these invariants are finer than the "top term" of the knot Floer homology, which they contain. In particular, we use sutured Floer homology to distinguish two non-isotopic minimal genus Seifert surfaces for the knot 8_3. A key ingredient for this technique is finding appropriate Heegaard diagrams for the sutured manifold associated to the complement of a Seifert surface.
We establish three rank inequalities for the reduced flavor of Heegaard Floer homology of Seifert fibered integral homology spheres. Combining these inequalities with the known classifications of non-zero degree maps between Seifert fibered spaces, we prove that a map f from Y' to Y between Seifert homology spheres yields the inequality that |deg f| rank HFred(Y) is at most rank HFred(Y'). These inequalities are also applied in conjunction with an algorithm of Nemethi to give a method to solve the botany problem for the Heegaard Floer homology of these manifolds.
We exhibit the first example of a knot in the three-sphere with a pair of minimal genus Seifert surfaces that can be distinguished using the sutured Floer homology of their complementary manifolds together with the Spin^c-grading. This answers a question of Juhász. More precisely, we show that the Euler characteristic of the sutured Floer homology of the complementary manifolds distinguishes between the two surfaces, as does the sutured Floer polytope introduced by Juhász. Actually, we exhibit an infinite family of knots with pairs of Seifert surfaces that can be distinguished by the Euler cha…
We compute the $\mathrm{Pin}(2)$-equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer homology of Seifert rational homology three-spheres in terms of their Heegaard Floer homology. As a result of this computation, we prove Manolescu's conjecture that $β=-\barμ$ for Seifert integral homology three-spheres. We show that the Manolescu invariants $α, β,$ and $γ$ give new obstructions to homology cobordisms between Seifert fiber spaces, and that many Seifert homology spheres $Σ(a_1,...,a_n)$ are not homology cobordant to any $-Σ(b_1,...,b_n)$. We then use the same invariants to give an example of an integral homology …
We compute the connected Heegaard Floer homology (defined by Hendricks, Hom, and Lidman) for a large class of 3-manifolds, including all linear combinations of Seifert fibered homology spheres. We show that for such manifolds, the connected Floer homology completely determines the local equivalence class of the associated $ι$-complex. Some identities relating the rank of the connected Floer homology to the Rokhlin invariant and the Neumann-Siebenmann invariant are also derived. Our computations are based on combinatorial models inspired by the work of Némethi on lattice homology.
We examine surgery on a knot in $S^3$ to determine surgery obstructions to Seifert fibered integral homology spheres. We find such surgery obstructions using Heegaard Floer, Knot Floer homology and the mapping cone formula for computing Heegaard Floer homology of surgery on a knot. Here however, we take a different approach and use the number of singular fibers of a Seifert fibered integral homology sphere, which is the toroidal structure, to find obstructions. This approach allows us to show that genus one knots cannot yield Seifert fibered integral homology spheres with six or more singular …
We find an infinite family of Seifert fibered surgeries on strongly invertible knots which do not have primitive/Seifert positions. Each member of the family is obtained from a trefoil knot after alternate twists along a pair of seiferters for a Seifert fibered surgery on a trefoil knot.
We show that among Seifert fibered integer homology spheres, Poincare sphere (with either orientation) is the only non-trivial example which has trivial Heegaard Floer homology. Together with an earlier result, this shows that if an integer homology sphere has trivial Heegaard Floer homology, then it is a connected sum of a number of Poincare spheres and hyperbolic homology spheres.
A Seifert surgery is a pair (K, m) of a knot K in the 3-sphere and an integer m such that m-Dehn surgery on K results in a Seifert fiber space allowed to contain fibers of index zero. Twisting K along a trivial knot called a seiferter for (K, m) yields Seifert surgeries. We study Seifert surgeries obtained from those on a trefoil knot by twisting along their seiferters. Although Seifert surgeries on a trefoil knot are the most basic ones, this family is rich in variety. For any m which is not -2 it contains a successive triple of Seifert surgeries (K, m), (K, m +1), (K, m +2) on a hyperbolic k…
How do Seifert surgeries on hyperbolic knots arise from those on torus knots? We approach this question from a networking viewpoint. The Seifert Surgery Network is a 1-dimensional complex whose vertices correspond to Seifert surgeries; two vertices are connected by an edge if one Seifert surgery is obtained from the other by a single twist along a trivial knot called a seiferter or along an annulus cobounded by seiferters. Successive twists along a "hyperbolic seiferter" or a "hyperbolic annular pair" produce infinitely many Seifert surgeries on hyperbolic knots. In this paper, we investigate …
A Seifert surgery is an integral surgery on a knot in S^3 producing a Seifert fiber space which may contain an exceptional fiber of index 0. The Seifert Surgery Network is a 1-dimensional complex whose vertices correspond to Seifert surgeries; its edges correspond to single twistings along "seiferters" or "annular pairs of seiferters". One problem of the network is whether there is a path from each vertex to a vertex on a torus knot, the most basic Seifert surgery. We give a method to find seiferters and annular pairs of seiferters for Seifert surgeries obtained by taking two--fold branched co…
The twisted torus knots lie on the standard genus 2 Heegaard surface for $S^3$, as do the primitive/primitive and primitive/Seifert knots. It is known that primitive/primitive knots are fibered, and that not all primitive/Seifert knots are fibered. Since there is a wealth of primitive/Seifert knots that are twisted torus knots, we consider the twisted torus knots to partially answer the question of which primitive/Seifert knots are fibered. A braid computation shows that a particular family of twisted torus knots is fibered, and that computation is then used to generalize the results of a prev…
We explore certain restrictions on knots in the three-sphere which admit non-trivial Seifert fibered surgeries. These restrictions stem from the Heegaard Floer homology for Seifert fibered spaces, and hence they have consequences for both the Alexander polynomial of such knots, and also their knot Floer homology. In particular, we show that certain polynomials are never the Alexander polynomials of knots which admit homology three-sphere Seifert fibered surgeries. The knot Floer homology restrictions, on the other hand, apply also in cases where the Alexander polynomial gives no information, s…
We show that bordered Floer homology provides a categorification of a TQFT described by Donaldson. This, in turn, leads to a proof that both the Alexander module of a knot and the Seifert form are completely determined by Heegaard Floer theory.
We show that if a Montesinos knot admits a Dehn surgery yielding a toroidal Seifert fibered 3-manifold, then the knot is the trefoil knot and the surgery slope is 0.
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 show that for each Seifert form of an algebraically slice knot with nontrivial Alexander polynomial, there exists an infinite family of knots having the Seifert form such that the knots are linearly independent in the knot concordance group and not concordant to any knot with coprime Alexander polynomial. Key ingredients for the proof are Cheeger-Gromov-von Neumann rho-invariants for amenable groups developed by Cha and Orr and polynomial splittings of metabelian rho-invariants.
The first examples of totally geodesic Seifert surfaces are constructed for hyperbolic knots and links, including both free and totally knotted surfaces. Then it is proved that two bridge knot complements cannot contain totally geodesic orientable surfaces.
We give a complete classification of toroidal Seifert fibered surgeries on alternating knots. Precisely, we show that if an alternating knot admits a toroidal Seifert fibered surgery, then the knot is either the trefoil knot and the surgery slope is zero, or the connected sum of a (2,p)-torus knot and a (2,q)-torus knot and the surgery slope is 2(p+q) with |p|, |q| at least three.
We show that a knot in $S^3$ with an infinite number of distinct incompressible Seifert surfaces contains a closed incompressible surface in its complement.
Recently Kearton showed that any Seifert matrix of a knot is S--equivalent to the Seifert matrix of a prime knot. We show in this note that such a matrix is in fact S--equivalent to the Seifert matrix of a hyperbolic knot. This result follows from reinterpreting this problem in terms of Blanchfield pairings and by applying results of Kawauchi.
Roberts proved that a family of alternating, arborescent, prime knots each have at least $2^{2n-1}$ distinct minimal genus Seifert surfaces, where $n$ is the genus of the knot in question. We give a subfamily of these knots that have exactly this many minimal genus Seifert surfaces.
Berge introduced knots that are primitive/primitive with respect to the genus 2 Heegaard surface, $F$, in $S^3$; surgery on such knots at the surface slope yields a lens space. Later Dean described a similar class of knots that are primitive/Seifert with respect to $F$; surgery on these knots at the surface slope yields a Seifert fibered space. Here we construct a two-parameter family of knots that have distinct primitive/Seifert embeddings in $F$ with the same surface slope, as well as a family of torus knots that have a primitive/primitive representative and a primitive/Seifert representativ…
We prove that the map on knot Floer homology induced by a ribbon concordance is injective. As a consequence, we prove that the Seifert genus is monotonic under ribbon concordance. We also generalize a theorem of Gabai about the super-additivity of the Seifert genus under band connected sum. Our result gives evidence for a conjecture of Gordon that ribbon concordance is a partial order on the set of knots.
In this paper, we define the primitive/Seifert-fibered property for a knot in S^3. If satisfied, the property ensures that the knot has a Dehn surgery that yields a small Seifert-fibered space (i.e. base S^2 and three or fewer critical fibers). Next we describe the twisted torus knots, which provide an abundance of examples of primitive/Seifert-fibered knots. By analyzing the twisted torus knots, we prove that nearly all possible triples of multiplicities of the critical fibers arise via Dehn surgery on primitive/Seifert-fibered knots.
Exceptional Dehn surgeries on arborescent knots have been classified except for Seifert fibered surgeries on Montesinos knots of length 3. There are infinitely many of them as it is known that 4n+6 and 4n+7 surgeries on a (-2, 3, 2n+1) pretzel knot are Seifert fibered. It will be shown that there are only finitely many others. A list of 20 surgeries will be given and proved to be Seifert fibered. We conjecture that this is a complete list.
We define a filtration on the vector space spanned by Seifert matrices of knots related to Vassiliev's filtration on the space of knots. Further we show that the invariants of knots derived from the filtration can be expressed by coefficients of the Alexander polynomial.
We will use immersed surfaces to study Seifert fibered surgery on Montesinos knots, and show that if $\frac 1{q_1-1} + \frac 1{q_2-1} + \frac 1{q_3-1} \leq 1$ then a Montesinos knot $K(\frac{p_1}{q_1}, \frac{p_2}{q_2}, \frac{p_3}{q_3})$ admits no atoroidal Seifert fibered surgery.
We study invariant Seifert surfaces for strongly invertible knots, and prove that the gap between the equivariant genus (the minimum of the genera of invariant Seifert surfaces) of a strongly invertible knot and the (usual) genus of the underlying knot can be arbitrary large. This forms a sharp contrast with Edmonds' theorem that every periodic knot admits an invariant minimal genus Seifert surface. We also prove variants of Edmonds' theorem, which are useful in studying invariant Seifert surfaces for strongly invertible knots.
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 show that if $B$ is an aspherical 2-orbifold in one of the families known to have orbifold fundamental groups of weight 1 then $B$ is the base of a Seifert fibration of a 2-knot manifold $M(K)$.
We prove that there are exactly $6$ Nil Seifert fibred spaces which can be obtained by Dehn surgeries on non-trefoil knots in $S^3$, with $\{60, 144, 156, 288, 300\}$ as the exact set of all such surgery slopes up to taking the mirror images of the knots. We conjecture that there are exactly $4$ specific hyperbolic knots in $S^3$ which admit Nil Seifert fibred surgery. We also give some more general results and a more general conjecture concerning Seifert fibred surgeries on hyperbolic knots in $S^3$.
We prove a basic inequality for the d-invariants of a splice of knots in homology spheres. As a result, we are able to prove a new relation on the rank of reduced Floer homology under maps between Seifert fibered homology spheres, improving results of the first and second authors. As a corollary, a degree one map between two aspherical Seifert homology spheres is homotopic to a homeomorphism if and only if the Heegaard Floer homologies are isomorphic.
Suppose $α$ and $R$ are disjoint simple closed curves in the boundary of a genus two handlebody $H$ such that $H[R]$ embeds in $S^3$ as the exterior of a hyperbolic knot $k$(thus, $k$ is a tunnel-number-one knot), and $α$ is Seifert in $H$(i.e., a 2-handle addition $H[α]$ is a Seifert-fibered space) and not the meridian of $H[R]$. Then for a slope $γ$ of $k$ represented by $α$, $γ$-Dehn surgery $k(γ)$ is a Seifert-fibered space. Such a construction of Seifert-fibered Dehn surgeries generalizes that of Seifert-fibered Dehn surgeries arising from primtive/Seifert positions of a knot, which was i…
Which slopes can or cannot appear as Seifert fibered slopes for hyperbolic knots in the 3-sphere S^3? It is conjectured that if r-surgery on a hyperbolic knot in S^3 yields a Seifert fiber space, then r is an integer. We show that for each integer n, there exists a tunnel number one, hyperbolic knot K_n in S^3 such that n-surgery on K_n produces a small Seifert fiber space.
For every genus $g\geq 2$, we construct an infinite family of strongly quasipositive fibred knots having the same Seifert form as the torus knot $T(2,2g+1)$. In particular, their signatures and four-genera are maximal and their homological monodromies (hence their Alexander module structures) agree. On the other hand, the geometric stretching factors are pairwise distinct and the knots are pairwise not ribbon concordant.
By a recent result of Livingston, it is known that if a knot has a prime power branched cyclic cover that is not a homology sphere, then there is an infinite family of non-concordant knots having the same Seifert form as the knot. In this paper, we extend this result to the full extent. We show that if the knot has nontrivial Alexander polynomial, then there exists an infinite family of non-concordant knots having the same Seifert form as the knot. As a corollary, no nontrivial Alexander polynomial determines a unique knot concordance class. We use Cochran-Orr-Teichner's recent result on the k…
We complete the classification of hyperbolic pretzel knots admitting Seifert fibered surgeries. This is the final step in understanding all exceptional surgeries on hyperbolic pretzel knots. We also present results toward similar classifications for non-pretzel Montesinos knots of length three.
We give a new criterion for a given knot to be a Montesinos knot by using the Rasmussen invariant and the signature. We apply the criterion to study Seifert fibered surgery on a strongly invertible knot, and show that a $(p,q,q)$-pretzel knot with integers $p,q \ge 2$ admits no Seifert fibered surgery.
We generalize the results of [AS], finding large classes of totally geodesic Seifert surfaces in hyperbolic knot and link complements, each the lift of a rigid 2-orbifold embedded in some hyperbolic 3-orbifold. In addition, we provide a uniqueness theorem and demonstrate that many knots cannot possess totally geodesic Seifert surfaces by giving bounds on the width invariant in the presence of such a surface. Finally, we utilize these examples to demonstrate that the Six Theorem is sharp for knot complements in the 3-sphere.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the relations between Seifert manifolds and (1,1)-knots. In particular, we prove that every orientable Seifert manifold with invariants {Oo,0|-1;(p,q),...,(p,q),(l, l-1)} has a cyclically presented fundamental group and, moreover, it is the n-fold strongly-cyclic covering of the lens space L(|nlq-p|,q), branched over the (1,1)-knot K(q,q(nl-2),p-2q,p-q) if p>=2q, and over the (1,1)-knot K(p-q,2q-p,q(nl-2),p-q) if p<2q.
A virtual knot that has a homologically trivial representative $\mathscr{K}$ in a thickened surface $Σ\times [0,1]$ is said to be an almost classical (AC) knot. $\mathscr{K}$ then bounds a Seifert surface $F\subset Σ\times [0,1]$. Seifert surfaces of AC knots are useful for computing concordance invariants and slice obstructions. However, Seifert surfaces in $Σ\times [0,1]$ are difficult to construct. Here we introduce virtual Seifert surfaces of AC knots. These are planar figures representing $F \subset Σ\times [0,1]$. An algorithm for constructing a virtual Seifert surface from a Gauss diagr…
This article was originally published in Topology 31 (1992). The present hyperTeXed redaction corrects a few typographical errors and updates the references.
For a knot $K$ with $Δ_K(t)\doteq t^2-3t+1$ in a homology $3$-sphere, let $M$ be the result of $2/q$-surgery on $K$. We show that an appropriate assumption on the Reidemeister torsion of the universal abelian covering of $M$ implies $q=\pm 1$, if $M$ is a Seifert fibered space.
For a given smooth $2$-knot in $S^4$, we relate the existence of a smooth Seifert hypersurface of a certain class to the existence of irreducible $ SU(2)$-representations of its knot group. For example, we see that any smooth $2$-knot having the Poincaré homology $3$-sphere as a Seifert hypersurface has at least four irreducible $SU(2)$-representations of its knot group. This result is false in the topological category. The proof uses a quantitative formulation of instanton Floer homology. Using similar techniques, we also obtain similar results about codimension-$1$ embeddings of homology $3$…
For a knot $K$ with $Δ_K(t)\doteq t^2-3t+1$ in a homology $3$-sphere, let $M$ be the result of $2/q$-surgery on $K$. We show that appropriate assumptions on the Reidemeister torsion and the Casson-Walker-Lescop invariant of the universal abelian covering of $M$ imply $q=\pm 1$, if $M$ is a Seifert fibered space.
We show that if $Y$ is the boundary of an almost-rational plumbing, then the framed instanton Floer homology $\smash{I^\#(Y)}$ is isomorphic to the Heegaard Floer homology $\smash{\widehat{\mathit{HF}}(Y; \mathbb{C})}$. This class of 3-manifolds includes all Seifert fibered rational homology spheres with base orbifold $S^2$ (we establish the isomorphism for the remaining Seifert fibered rational homology spheres$\unicode{x2014}$with base $\mathbb{RP}^2$$\unicode{x2014}$directly). Our proof utilizes lattice homology, and relies on a decomposition theorem for instanton Floer cobordism maps recen…
In this paper, we compute the symplectic Floer homology of the figure eight knot. This provides first nontrivial knot with trivial symplectic Floer homology.
We prove that the rank of knot Floer homology detects the Hopf links, and generalize this result further to classify the links of the second smallest knot Floer homology. We also prove a knot Floer homology analog of arXiv:1910.04246v1 [math.GT] and give a partial answer to when the equality holds in the rank inequality between the knot Floer homology of a link and its sublinks.
Using the mapping cone of a rational surgery, we give several obstructions for Seifert fibered surgeries, including obstructions on the Alexander polynomial, the knot Floer homology, the surgery coefficient and the Seifert and four-ball genus of the knot.
We study an invariant of a 3-manifold which consists of Reidemeister torsion for linear representations which pass through a finite group. We show a Dehn surgery formula on this invariant and compute that of a Seifert manifold over $S^2$. As a consequence we obtain a necessary condition for a result of Dehn surgery along a knot to be Seifert fibered, which can be applied even in a case where abelian Reidemeister torsion gives no information.
We show that the Vassiliev invariants of orders $\leq n$ of a knot K, are obstructions to finding a regular Seifert surface, S, whose complement looks "simple" (e.g. like the complement of a disc) to the lower central series of its fundamental group. As a consequence of this, we obtain that the Vassiliev invariants of the knot $K=\partial S$ are null-concordance obstructions of certain links that can be obtained from regular spines of S. We also discuss various generalizations of these results, and we conjecture a geometric characterization of knots whose invariants of all orders vanish.
We show that the Seifert-Weber dodecahedral space $\mathsf{SW}$ is an $L$-space. The proof builds on our work relating Floer homology and spectral geometry of hyperbolic three-manifolds. A direct application of our previous techniques runs into difficulties arising from the computational complexity of the problem. We overcome this by exploiting the large symmetry group and the arithmetic and tetrahedral group structure of $\mathsf{SW}$ to prove that small eigenvalues on coexact $1$-forms must have large multiplicity.
We exhibit an infinite family of knots with isomorphic knot Heegaard Floer homology. Each knot in this infinite family admits a nontrivial genus two mutant which shares the same total dimension in both knot Floer homology and Khovanov homology. Each knot is distinguished from its genus two mutant by both knot Floer homology and Khovanov homology as bigraded groups. Additionally, for both knot Heegaard Floer homology and Khovanov homology, the genus two mutation interchanges the groups in $δ$-gradings $k$ and $-k$.
