This is an expository paper, in which we give a summary of some of the joint work of John Luecke and the author on Dehn surgery. We consider the situation where we have two Dehn fillings $M(α)$ and $M(β)$ on a given 3-manifold $M$, each containing a surface that is either essential or a Heegaard surface. We show how a combinatorial analysis of the graphs of intersection of the two corresponding punctured surfaces in $M$ enables one to find faces of these graphs which give useful topological information about $M(α)$ and $M(β)$, and hence, in certain cases, good upper bounds on the intersection number $Δ(α, β)$ of the two filling slopes.
We use sutured manifold theory, essential laminations and essential branched surfaces to establish the upper bounds of distances between certain types of nonsimple Dehn surgery slopes. This is the revised version of an earlier preprint {\it Dehn surgery and simple manifolds.}
In this paper we extend Thurston's hyperbolic Dehn surgery theorem to a class of geometrically infinite hyperbolic 3-manifolds. As an application we prove a modest density theorem for Kleinian groups. We also discuss hyperbolic Dehn surgery on geometrically finite hypebolic cone-manifolds.
A consequence of the Cabling Conjecture of Gonzalez-Acuña and Short is that Dehn surgery on a knot in $S^3$ cannot produce a manifold with more than two connected summands. In the event that some Dehn surgery produces a manifold with three or more connected summands, then the surgery parameter is bounded in terms of the bridge number by a result of Sayari. Here this bound is sharpened, providing further evidence in favour of the Cabling Conjecture.
A Dehn surgery on a knot $K$ in $S^3$ is exceptional if it produces a reducible, toroidal or Seifert fibred manifold. It is known that a large arborescent knot admits no such surgery unless it is a type II arborescent knot. The main theorem of this paper shows that up to isotopy there are exactly three large arborescent knots admitting exceptional surgery, each of which admits exactly one exceptional surgery, producing a toroidal manifold.
For a compact connected 3-submanifold with connected boundary in the 3-sphere, we relate the existence of a Seifert surface system for a surface with a Dehn surgery along a null-homologous link. As its corollary, we obtain a refinement of the Fox's re-embedding theorem.
This article is solicited by C.\ Adams for a special issue of {\it Chaos, Solitons and Fractals\/} devoted to knot theory and its applications. We present some recent results about Dehn surgeries on arborescent knots and links.
Let K be a fibered knot in the 3-sphere. We show that if the monodromy of K is sufficiently complicated, then Dehn surgery on K cannot yield a lens space. Work of Yi Ni shows that if K has a lens space surgery then it is fibered. Combining this with our result we see that if K has a lens space surgery then it is fibered and the monodromy is relatively simple.
Let M be a closed 3-manifold obtained by Dehn surgery along the figure-eight knot. We give a formula of the Reisdemeisiter torsion of M for any irreducible SL(2;C)-representation. It is described as a rational expression of the trace of the image of the meridian.
Berge in [1] defined doubly primitive knots, which yield lens spaces by Dehn surgery. At the same paper he listed the knots into several types. In this paper we will prove the list is complete when $τ>1$. The invariant $τ$ is a quantity with regard to lens space surgery, which is defined in this paper. Furthermore at the same time we will also prove that Table~6 in [8] is complete as Poincaré homology sphere surgery when $τ>1$.
We provide related Dehn surgery descriptions for rational homology spheres and a class of their regular finite cyclic covering spaces. As an application, we use the surgery descriptions to relate the Casson invariants of the covering spaces to that of the base space. Finally, we show that this places restrictions on the number of finite and cyclic Dehn fillings of the knot complements in the covering spaces beyone those imposed by Culler-Gordon-Luecke-Shalen and Boyer-Zhang.
We calculate limits of the colored Jones polynomials of the figure-eight knot and conclude that in most cases they determine the volumes and the Chern--Simons invariants of the three-manifolds obtained by Dehn surgeries along it.
When can surgery on a null-homologous knot K in a rational homology sphere produce a non-separating sphere? We use Heegaard Floer homology to give sufficient conditions for K to be unknotted. We also discuss some applications to homology cobordism, concordance, and Mazur manifolds.
Let K be a non-trivial knot in the 3-sphere and let Y(r) be the 3-manifold obtained by surgery on K with surgery-coefficient a rational number r. We show that there is a homomorphism from the fundamental group of Y(r) to SU(2) with non-cyclic image if r is less than or equal to 2.
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 write down an explicit formula for the $+$ version of the Heegaard Floer homology (as an absolutely graded vector space over an arbitrary field) of the results of Dehn surgery on a knot $K$ in $S^3$ in terms of homological data derived from $CFK^{\infty}(K)$. This allows us to prove some results about Dehn surgery on knots in $S^3$. In particular, we show that for a fixed manifold there are only finitely many alternating knots that can produce it by surgery. This is an improvement on a recent result by Lackenby and Purcell. We also derive a lower bound on the genus of knots depending on the…
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.
We show that there exist infinitely many pairs of distinct knots in the 3-sphere such that each pair can yield homeomorphic lens spaces by the same Dehn surgery. Moreover, each knot of the pair can be chosen to be a torus knot, a satellite knot or a hyperbolic knot, except that both cannot be satellite knots simultaneously. This exception is shown to be unavoidable by the classical theory of binary quadratic forms.
Let K be a (2p,q)-torus knot and M_n is a 3-manifold obtained by 1/n-Dehn surgery along K. We consider a polynomial whose zeros are the inverses of the Reideimeister torsion of M_n for SL(2;C)-irreducible representations. Johnson gave a formula for the case of the (2,3)-torus knot under some modification and normalization. We generalize this formula by using Tchebychev polynomials.
We use the combinatorial techniques of graphs of intersection to study reducible Dehn surgeries on knots in the three-sphere. In particular, in the event that a reducible surgery on a knot K in the three-sphere of slope r produces a manifold with more than two connected summands, we show that r is bounded in absolute value by the bridge number of K. As a consequence, this possibility is ruled out for knots with bridge number at most five and for positive braid closures.
Let $M_n$ be a homology 3-sphere obtained by $\frac1n$-Dehn surgery along a $(p,q)$-torus knot. We consider a polynomial $σ_{(p,q,n)}(t)$ whose zeros are the inverses of the Reideimeister torsion of $M_n$ for $\mathit{SL}(2;\mathbb{C})$-irreducible representations. We give an explicit formula of this polynomial by using Tchebychev polynomials of the first kind. Further we also give a 3-term relations of these polynomials.
Consider a three dimensional cusped spherical $\mathrm{CR}$ manifold $M$ and suppose that the holonomy representation of $π_1(M)$ can be deformed in such a way that the peripheral holonomy is generated by a non-parabolic element. We prove that, in this case, there is a spherical $\mathrm{CR}$ structure on some Dehn surgeries of $M$. The result is very similar to R. Schwartz's spherical $\mathrm{CR}$ Dehn surgery theorem, but has weaker hypotheses and does not give the unifomizability of the structure. We apply our theorem in the case of the Deraux-Falbel structure on the Figure Eight knot comp…
Motivated by Clay and Watson's question on left-orderability of the fundamental group of the resultant space of an $r'$-surgery on the $(p, q)$-cable knots for $r' \in (pq-p-q,pq)$, this paper proves by elementary means that for specific pairs of $(p,q)$-cable knots of torus knots, $r' \in [pq-1,pq]$ gives a surgery yielding non-left orderable fundamental groups.
A combinatorial condition is obtained for when immersed or embedded incompressible surfaces in compact 3-manifolds with tori boundary components remain incompressible after Dehn surgery. A combinatorial characterisation of hierarchies is described. A new proof is given of the topological rigidity theorem of Hass and Scott for 3-manifolds containing immersed incompressible surfaces, as found in cubings of non-positive curvature.
When can one 3-manifold be transformed to another by a finite sequence of Dehn surgeries which are restricted to preserve the first homology of the manifolds ? What is the resulting equivalence relation on 3-manifolds ? What if the surgery circle is further restricted to lie more deeply in the lower central series of the fundamental group ? We answer these questions. It is shown that many of these questions have answers in terms of classical toplogical invariants. Relations with Heegard splittings and the Torelli group are discussed. This is also related to whether or not one 3-manifold may be…
In this paper we define a new invariant of the incomplete hyperbolic structures on a 1-cusped finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold M, called the ortholength invariant. We show that away from a (possibly empty) subvariety of excluded values this invariant both locally parameterises equivalence classes of hyperbolic structures and is a complete invariant of the Dehn fillings of M which admit a hyperbolic structure. We also give an explicit formula for the ortholength invariant in terms of the traces of the holonomies of certain loops in M. Conjecturally this new invariant is intimately related to…
Let K' be a hyperbolic knot in S^3 and suppose that some Dehn surgery on K' with distance at least 3 from the meridian yields a 3-manifold M of Heegaard genus 2. We show that if M does not contain an embedded Dyck's surface (the closed non-orientable surface of Euler characteristic -1), then the knot dual to the surgery is either 0-bridge or 1-bridge with respect to a genus 2 Heegaard splitting of M. In the case M does contain an embedded Dyck's surface, we obtain similar results. As a corollary, if M does not contain an incompressible genus 2 surface, then the tunnel number of K' is at most 2…
In a talk at the Cornell Topology Festival in 2005, W. Thurston discussed a graph which we call "The Big Dehn Surgery Graph", B. Here we explore this graph, particularly the link of S^3, and prove facts about the geometry and topology of B. We also investigate some interesting subgraphs and pose what we believe are important questions about B.
We show that, for any given 3-manifold M, there are at most finitely many hyperbolic knots K in the 3-sphere and fractions p/q (with q > 22), such that M is obtained by p/q surgery along K. This is a corollary of the following result. If M is obtained by Dehn filling the cusps of a hyperbolic 3-manifold X, where each filling slope has length more than 2 π+ ε, then, for any given M and ε> 0, there are only finitely many possibilities for X and for the filling slopes. In this paper, we also investigate the length of boundary slopes, and sequences of negatively curved metrics on a given 3-manifol…
We show there exists a linear function w: N->N with the following property. Let K be a hyperbolic knot in a hyperbolic 3-manifold M admitting a non-longitudinal S^3 surgery. If K is put into thin position with respect to a strongly irreducible, genus g Heegaard splitting of M then K intersects a thick level at most 2w(g) times. Typically, this shows that the bridge number of K with respect to this Heegaard splitting is at most w(g), and the tunnel number of K is at most w(g) + g-1.
We provide a new obstruction for a rational homology 3-sphere to arise by Dehn surgery on a given knot in the 3-sphere. The obstruction takes the form of an inequality involving the genus of the knot, the surgery coefficient, and a count of L-structures on the 3-manifold, that is spin-c structures with the simplest possible associated Heegaard Floer group. Applications include an obstruction for two framed knots to yield the same 3-manifold, an obstruction that is particularly effective when working with families of framed knots. We introduce the rational and integral Dehn surgery genera for a…
Let $K$ be a hyperbolic knot in the 3-sphere. If $r$-surgery on $K$ yields a lens space, then we show that the order of the fundamental group of the lens space is at most $12g-7$, where $g$ is the genus of $K$. If we specialize to genus one case, it will be proved that no lens space can be obtained from genus one, hyperbolic knots by Dehn surgery. Therefore, together with known facts, we have that a genus one knot $K$ admits Dehn surgery yielding a lens space if and only if $K$ is the trefoil.
We show that any exceptional non-trivial Dehn surgery on a hyperbolic two-bridge knot yields a 3-manifold whose fundamental group is left-orderable. This gives a new supporting evidence for a conjecture of Boyer, Gordon and Watson.
We consider in this paper the minimally twisted chain link with 5 components in the 3-sphere, and we analyze the Dehn surgeries on it, namely the Dehn fillings on its exterior M5. The 3-manifold M5 is a nicely symmetric hyperbolic one, filling which one gets a wealth of hyperbolic 3-manifolds having 4 or fewer (including 0) cusps. In view of Thurston's hyperbolic Dehn filling theorem it is then natural to face the problem of classifying all the exceptional fillings on M5, namely those yielding non-hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Here we completely solve this problem, also showing that, thanks to the s…
If a closed, orientable hyperbolic 3--manifold M has volume at most 1.22 then H_1(M;Z_p) has dimension at most 2 for every prime p not 2 or 7, and H_1(M;Z_2) and H_1(M;Z_7) have dimension at most 3. The proof combines several deep results about hyperbolic 3--manifolds. The strategy is to compare the volume of a tube about a shortest closed geodesic C in M with the volumes of tubes about short closed geodesics in a sequence of hyperbolic manifolds obtained from M by Dehn surgeries on C.
We give a Dehn surgery characterization of the trefoil and the figure eight knots. These results are gotten by combining surgery formulas in Heegaard Floer homology from an earlier paper with the characterization of these knots in terms of their knot Floer homology given in a recent paper of Ghiggini.
This paper gives a quantitative version of Thurston's hyperbolic Dehn surgery theorem. Applications include the first universal bounds on the number of non-hyperbolic Dehn fillings on a cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold, and estimates on the changes in volume and core geodesic length during hyperbolic Dehn filling. The proofs involve the construction of a family of hyperbolic cone-manifold structures, using infinitesimal harmonic deformations and analysis of geometric limits.
Let $F$ be a proper essential immersed surface in a hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$ with boundary disjoint from a torus boundary component $T$ of $M$. Let $α$ be the set of coannular slopes of $F$ on $T$. The main theorem of the paper shows that there is a constant $K$ and a finite set of slopes $Λ$ on $T$, such that if $β$ is a slope on $T$ with $Δ(β, α_i) > K$ for all $α_i$ in $α$, and $β$ is not in $Λ$, then $F$ remains incompressible after Dehn filling on $T$ along the slope $β$. In certain sense, this means that $F$ survives most Dehn fillings. The proof uses minimal surface theory, integral of…
We define a twisted version of Manolescu and Woodward's Symplectic Instanton homology, prove that this invariant fits into the framework of Wehrheim and Woodward's Floer Field theory, and describe its behaviour for connected sum and Dehn surgery.
For any hyperbolic twist knot in the 3-sphere, we show that the resulting manifold by $r$-surgery on the knot has left-orderable fundamental group if the slope $r$ satisfies the inequality $0\le r \le 4$.
This paper concerns the Dehn surgery construction, especially those Dehn surgeries leaving the manifold unchanged. In particular, we describe an oriented 1-cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold X with a pair of slopes r_1, r_2 such that the Dehn filled manifolds X(r_1), X(r_2) are oppositely oriented copies of the lens space L(49,18), and there is no homeomorphism h of X such that h(r_1)=h(r_2).
We investigate the behavior of the SL(2,C) Casson invariant for 3-manifolds obtained by Dehn surgery along two-bridge knots. Using the results of Hatcher and Thurston, and also results of Ohtsuki, we outline how to compute the Culler--Shalen seminorms, and we illustrate this approach by providing explicit computations for double twist knots. We then apply the surgery formula of Curtis to deduce the SL(2,C) Casson invariant for the 3-manifolds obtained by p/q-Dehn surgery on such knots. These results are applied to prove nontriviality of the SL(2,C) Casson invariant for nearly all 3-manifolds o…
We show that any exceptional non-trivial Dehn surgery on a twist knot, except the trefoil, yields a 3-manifold whose fundamental group is left-orderable. This is a generalization of a result of Clay, Lidman and Watson, and also gives a new supporting evidence for a conjecture of Boyer, Gordon and Watson.
These are notes of a talk given at the Mathematische Arbeitstagung 2005 in Bonn. Following ideas of Ozbagci-Stipsicz, a proof based on contact Dehn surgery is given of Eliashberg's concave filling theorem for contact 3-manifolds. The role of that theorem in the Kronheimer-Mrowka proof of property P for nontrivial knots is sketched.
Given a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold M of volume V, and a link L in M such that the complement M \ L is hyperbolic, we establish a bound for the systole length of M \ L in terms of V. This extends a result of Adams and Reid, who showed that in the case that M is not hyperbolic, there is a universal bound of 7.35534... . As part of the proof, we establish a bound for the systole length of a non-compact finite volume hyperbolic manifold which grows asymptotically like (4/3)log(V).
A knot in the 3-sphere is called an L--space knot if it admits a nontrivial Dehn surgery yielding an L--space. Like torus knots and Berge knots, many L--space knots admit also a Seifert fibered surgery. We give a concrete example of a hyperbolic, L-space knot which has no exceptional surgeries, in particular, no Seifert fibered surgeries.
We introduce a general notion of "genericity" for countable subsets of a space with Borel measure, and apply it to the set of vertices in the curve complex of a surface S, interpreted as subset of the space of projective measured laminations in S, equipped with its natural Lebesgue measure. We prove that, for any 3-manifold M, the set of curves c on a Heegaard surface S in M, such that every non-trivial Dehn twist at c yields a Heegaard splitting of high distance, is generic in the set of all essential simple closed curves on S. Our definition of "genericity" is different and more intrinsic th…
Previous work of the authors establishes a criterion on the fundamental group of a knot complement that determines when Dehn surgery on the knot will have a fundamental group that is not left-orderable. We provide a refinement of this criterion by introducing the notion of a decayed knot; it is shown that Dehn surgery on decayed knots produces surgery manifolds that have non-left-orderable fundamental group for all sufficiently positive surgeries. As an application, we prove that sufficiently positive cables of decayed knots are always decayed knots. These results mirror properties of L-space …
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…
We show that the resulting manifold by $r$-surgery on the knot $5_2$, which is the two-bridge knot corresponding to the rational number 3/7, has left-orderable fundamental group if the slope $r$ satisfies $0\le r\le 4$.
Suppose $K$ is a hyperbolic knot in a solid torus $V$ intersecting a meridian disk $D$ twice. We will show that if $K$ is not the Whitehead knot and the frontier of a regular neighborhood of $K \cup D$ is incompressible in the knot exterior, then $K$ admits at most one exceptional surgery, which must be toroidal. Embedding $V$ in $S^3$ gives infinitely many knots $K_n$ with a slope $r_n$ corresponding to a slope $r$ of $K$ in $V$. If $r$ surgery on $K$ in $V$ is toroidal then either all but at most three $K_n(r_n)$ are toroidal, or they are all reducible or small Seifert fibered with two commo…
We propose a new algorithm for Dehn surgery problem, finding exceptional Dehn filling slopes for a given hyperbolic 3-manifold with a torus boundary, using a quantum invariant called "3D index". The invariant is defined using an ideal triangulation of the cusped 3-manifold. We test the algorithm for many examples.
