Boring split links

Abstract: Boring is an operation which converts a knot or two-component link in a 3--manifold into another knot or two-component link. It generalizes rational tangle replacement and can be described as a type of 2--handle attachment. Sutured manifold theory is used to study the existence of essential spheres and planar surfaces in the exteriors of knots and links obtained by boring a split link. It is shown, for example, that if the boring operation is complicated enough, a split link or unknot cannot be obtained by boring a split link. Particular attention is paid to rational tangle replacement. If a knot is obtained by rational tangle replacement on a split link, and a few minor conditions are satisfied, the number of boundary components of a meridional planar surface is bounded below by a number depending on the distance of the rational tangle replacement. This result is used to give new proofs of two results of Eudave-Mu~noz and Scharlemann's band sum theorem.

Review text

Attach an arc to a knot \(K\), forming a graph, and thicken the graph to form a genus 2 handlebody \(W\). We can compress \(W\) along a certain meridian disc \(\beta\) for \(W\), which means to delete the interior of a regular neighbourhood of \(\beta\). The original knot and the core \(L_{\beta}\) of the resulting handlebody, which can be a knot or a two-component link, are said to be related by boring. This operation is clearly symmetric, i.e. \(K=(L_{\beta})_{\alpha}\) for an appropriate meridian disc \(\alpha\) of \(W\). In fact, if we allow \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) to be disjoint in \(W\), any two knots in \(S^3\) can be related by boring, so attention is restricted to meridians of \(W\) that are not disjoint (even after isotopy). Boring generalizes several well-known operations in knot theory, included crossing changes, and more generally, rational tangle replacement (also the band move of the Kirby calculus is a type of boring), so it is natural to ask under what circumstances both links can be split, both the trivial knot, both composite, etc. The paper focuses on the exteriors \(M[\alpha]\) and \(M[\beta]\) of \(K=K_{\alpha}\) and \(K_{\beta}\) respectively (which are said to be obtained from the corresponding discs by refilling). \textit{M. Scharlemann} [in: The Zieschang Gedenkschrift. Coventry: Geometry \& Topology Publications. Geometry and Topology Monographs 14, 451--475 (2008; Zbl 1177.57019)] has conjectured that, under certain conditions, if these exteriors are both reducible or boundary reducible, then either \(W\) is an unknotted handlebody in \(S^3\) or the discs \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) are positioned in a particularly nice way in \(W\). Scharlemann could prove this in some situations, for example, when one of the discs is separating. This paper comes back to this conjecture. In particular, it is proved that if \(S^3-\)int\((W)\) is irreducible and boundary irreducible, and the discs \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) cannot be isotoped to be disjoint, then at least one of \(M[\alpha]\) or \(M[\beta]\) is irreducible. Other results by \textit{M. Eudave-Muñoz} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 306, No. 2, 773--790 (1988; Zbl 0657.57003)] and Scharlemann on rational tangle replacement are generalized, obtaining as a consequence a new proof of Scharlemann's band sum theorem (a band sum produces the unknot only if it is simply a connected sum of unknots). The main tool in the paper is Scharlemann's combinatorial version of Gabai's sutured manifold theory, cf. \textit{M. Scharlemann} [J. Differ. Geom. 29, No. 3, 557--614 (1989; Zbl 0673.57015)].

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