Montesinos knots, Hopf plumbings, and L-space surgeries (Q1743694)

A rational homology \(3\)-sphere \(Y\) is an L-space if it has a minimal Heegaard Floer homology, i.e. \(\mathrm{rk }\widehat{HF}(Y) = | H_1(Y;\mathbb Z)|\). L-spaces are generalizations of lens spaces from a Heegaard Floer theoretic viewpoint. We call a knot \(K\) in \(S^3\) an L-space knot if it admits a positive Dehn surgery yielding an L-space. It is interesting to ask which knots are L-space knots. There are some strong constraints for L-space knots. For instance, an L-space knot is fibered [\textit{Y. Ni}, Invent. Math. 170, No. 3, 577--608 (2007; Zbl 1138.57031)] and supports a tight contact structure of \(S^3\) [\textit{M. Hedden}, J. Knot Theory Ramifications 19, No. 5, 617--629 (2010; Zbl 1195.57029)]. In [Mich. Math. J. 65, No. 1, 105--130 (2016; Zbl 1338.57009)], \textit{T. Lidman} and \textit{A. H. Moore} classified pretzel knots which are L-space knots and conjectured that an L-space knot has no essential Conway sphere. In the paper under review, the authors extend Lidman-Moore's result to classify the L-space knots among the Montesinos knots. Their classification shows that generalizing from pretzel knots to Montesinos knots yields no new L-space knots besides the ones already obtained in Lidman-Moore's list. This result gives supporting evidence to the Lidman-Moore conjecture. In the proof, using Hirasawa-Murasugi's classification of fibered Montesinos knots, they obtain a classification of fibered Montesinos knots that support a tight contact structure. The authors also construct L-space knots with arbitrarily large tunnel number and discuss the question of whether L-space knots admit essential tangle decompositions in the context of satellite operations. On this occasion the reviewer would like to mention some recent progress related with a question given in the paper. Let \(K\) be an L-space satellite knot. Then the authors ask if \(K\) has a braided pattern and the companion knot of \(K\) is also an L-space knot. Recent results [\textit{J. Hom}, Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 48, No. 5, 771--778 (2016; Zbl 1355.57010), \textit{K. L. Baker} and \textit{K. Motegi}, ``Seifert vs slice genera of knots in twist families and a characterization of braid axes'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1705.10373}], together with [\textit{J. Hanselman} et al., ``Bordered Floer homology for manifolds with torus boundary via immersed curves'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1604.03466}], answer this question in the positive. In particular, an L-space satellite knot has no essential \(n\)-string tangle decomposition for \(n\leq 3\).