On hyperbolic knots with homeomorphic cyclic branched coverings (Q1271212)

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On hyperbolic knots with homeomorphic cyclic branched coverings
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    On hyperbolic knots with homeomorphic cyclic branched coverings (English)
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    30 May 1999
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    This interesting paper is concerned with the problem of determining knots by their cyclic branched coverings. More precisely, the main questions are the following: How many different knots can have the same \(n\)-fold cyclic branched covering? For which values of \(n\) is a knot determined by its \(n\)-fold cyclic branched covering? How many cyclic branched coverings are sufficient to determine a knot? The author proves beautiful results which answer the questions above for the class of \(2\pi/n\)-hyperbolic (and whence hyperbolic for \(n\geq 4)\) knots. For an integer \(n\geq 2\), a knot or link \(K\) is called \(2\pi/n\)-hyperbolic if the 3-sphere containing it admits a hyperbolic metric which becomes singular, with an angle of \(2\pi/n\), around the components of \(K\). The main theorems of the paper are the following: Suppose that \(n\) is not a power of 2. Then two inequivalent \(2\pi/n\)-hyperbolic knots \(K\) and \(F\) have the same \(n\)-fold cyclic branched covering \(M\) if and only if \((S^3,K)\) and \((S^3,F)\) are the \(n\)-fold cyclic branched coverings along the unknotted components \(F'\) (with \(K\) as the preimage of \(K')\) and \(K'\) (with \(F\) as the preimage of \(F')\) of a \(2\pi/n\)-hyperbolic 2-component link \(L=K'\cup F'\) in \(S^3\), which is not symmetric in \(K'\) and \(F'\) (i.e. there is no homeomorphism of \(S^3\) interchanging \(K'\) and \(F')\). Moreover, there exist at most two inequivalent \(2\pi/n\)-hyperbolic knots with the same \(n\)-fold cyclic branched covering. Finally, suppose that \(m>n\geq 2\) are not coprime. Then any \(2\pi/n\)-hyperbolic knot \(K\) is determined by its \(m\)-fold and \(n\)-fold cyclic branched coverings.
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    hyperbolic knots
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    orbifold
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    genus of a knot
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    hyperbolic links
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    cyclic branched covering
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