Surgeries, sharp 4-manifolds and the Alexander polynomial (Q2667206)

For a given knot \(K\) in the \(3\)-sphere \(S^3\), we say that \(p/q\) is a characterizing slope for \(K\) if whenever the result of \(p/q\)-surgery on a knot \(K'\) in \(S^3\) is orientation preservingly homeomorphic to the result of \(p/q\)-surgery on \(K\), then \(K'\) is isotopic to \(K\). \textit{Y. Ni} and \textit{X. Zhang} [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 14, No. 3, 1249--1274 (2014; Zbl 1297.57019)] studied characterizing slopes for torus knots \(T_{r, s}\) with \(r > s > 1\) and proved that \(p/q \ge \frac{30}{67}(r^2 -1)(s^2 -1)\) is a characterizing slope for \(T_{r, s}\). In the paper under review, the author proves that the above bound can be lowered to a bound which is linear in \(rs\). Precisely, he proves that \(p/q \ge 10.75(2g(T_{r,s}) -1) = \frac{43}{4}(rs -r-s)\) is a characterizing slope for \(T_{r, s}\), where \(g(T_{r,s})\) denotes the genus of \(T_{r, s}\). To obtain this improvement the author shows that if \(S^3_{p/q}(K) \cong S^3_{p/q}(K')\) is an L-space bounding a sharp \(4\)-manifold for some \(p/q \ge 4g(K) + 4\), then their Alexander polynomials are the same and \(g(K) = g(K')\). Furthermore, concerning the condition of bounding a sharp \(4\)-manifold, he shows that if \(S^3_{p/q}(K)\) bounds a sharp \(4\)-manifold for some \(p/q > 0\), then \(S^3_{p'/q'}(K)\) also bounds a sharp \(4\)-manifold for all \(p'/q' \ge p/q\). Using the above result about the characterizing slopes for \(T_{r, s}\), the author also establishes that any torus knot \(T_{r, s}\) with \(r, s >1\) has only finitely many non-characterizing slopes which are not negative integers [\textit{D. McCoy}, Commun. Anal. Geom. 28, No. 7, 1647--1682 (2020; Zbl 1468.57006)].