Floer homology of surgeries on two-bridge knots (Q1851216)

The paper under review is mainly a computation of the Ozsváth-Szabò-defined Floer homology for integral surgeries on two-bridge knots. The results are summarized in Theorem 1. A set of attaching circles \({\pmb \alpha}=\{\alpha_1, \cdots, \alpha_g\}\) gives rise to a real torus \(T_{\pmb \alpha}=\alpha_1 \times \cdots \times \alpha_g \subset \text{Sym}^g(\Sigma_g)\), the \(g\)-fold symmetric product of a genus \(g\) surface \(\Sigma_g\). A pointed Heegaard diagram is a four-tuple \((\Sigma_g, {\pmb \alpha}, {\pmb \beta}, z)\), where \(\Sigma_g\) is an oriented surface of genus \(g\), \({\pmb \alpha}\), and \({\pmb \beta}\) are sets of attaching circles in \(\Sigma_g\) and \(z\) is a fixed reference point on \(\Sigma_g\). The chain group is freely generated by the intersection points \(T_{\pmb \alpha} \cap T_{\pmb \beta}\), and an index is given by the Maslov index of the Lagrangians \(T_{\pmb \alpha}\) and \(T_{\pmb \beta}\) in \(\text{Sym}^g(\Sigma_g)\). The differential is to count the holomorphic disks along \(T_{\pmb \alpha}\) and \(T_{\pmb \beta}\) with fixed intersection points. This gives the Lagrangian version of the Floer homology for \((\text{Sym}^g(\Sigma_g); T_{\pmb \alpha}, T_{\pmb \beta})\). Using the Schubert normal form for two-bridge knots, one obtains a nice handle decomposition. To do the \(n\)-surgery is the same as to attach a two-handle along the curve \(l + n m\), where \(l\) is the longitude and \(m\) is the meridian of the bridge knot \(K\). Thus the resulting 3-manifold \(K^n\) has a Heegaard diagram of genus 2 with attaching circles \(\alpha_1, \alpha_2, \beta_1, \beta_2\). The generators of the chain groups consist of the intersection \(T_{\pmb \alpha} \cap T_{\pmb \beta}\). For \(n\) sufficiently large, the author is able to identify the generators, their grading and differentials in Proposition 3.3 and 3.4. The differential sends \(\widehat{x}_{2i}\) to \(\widehat{x}_{2i+1}\) for \(i\geq 1\), and leaves only \(x_1\) fixed. Thus the homology of \(\widehat{CF}_s(K^n)\) is a single copy of \(\mathbb{Z} \langle x_1 \rangle\). Various other homologies are formulated and calculated in section 4. Note that all Floer homologies computed in this paper are determined by the Alexander polynomial and the signature of the knot. It would be interesting to know if the Ozsváth-Szabò-defined Floer homology can distinguish knots which cannot be distinguished by classical invariants. By applying the exact triangle, the Floer homology \(HF^+(K^n)\) for any \(n\in \mathbb{Z}\) is obtained in section 5. Some speculations are given in the last section to extend the method to other knots.