Detecting fibred links in \(S^ 3\) (Q1089960)

The author describes a simple procedure to decide in practice whether or not a link L in \(S^ 3\), bounding a Seifert surface R, is a fibered link with fiber R. As a corollary, he gives the complete list of all fibered knots of \(\leq 10\) crossings, and all fibered links of \(\leq 9\) crossings. He also shows how to efficiently use his procedure for alternating links and for pretzel links. One of the tools developed is the following lemma: if the Murasugi sum of two surfaces is a fiber, then each of these two surfaces is a fiber. The techniques involved rely on the notion of sutured manifold, developed by the author in his construction of foliations of 3-manifolds [J. Differ. Geom. 18, 445-503 (1983; Zbl 0533.57013); Topology 23, 381-394 (1984; Zbl 0567.57021)], although no foliation explicitly appears in the algorithm and the arguments.