On cyclic branched coverings of torus knots (Q1288018)

A cyclic presentation of a group is a presentation with \(n\) (ordered) generators and \(n\) relators obtained from a single word by all cyclic permutations of the generators. The best known examples are the Fibonacci groups, with relators of the form \(x_ix_{i+1}x_{i+2}^{-1}\). These presentations of the Fibonacci groups correspond to spines (or Heegaard splittings) of the 3-manifolds obtained as the \(n\)-fold cyclic branched coverings of the figure-8 knot. It is an open problem to determine which cyclic presentations of groups correspond to spines of closed 3-manifolds, and in particular for which classes of knots the cyclic branched coverings give rise to such representations. In the present paper it is shown that the \(n\)-fold cyclic branched coverings of the torus knots \(K(p,q)\) (the Brieskorn manifolds \(M(n,p,q))\) have spines corresponding to explicitly given cyclic presentations \(G(n,p,q)\) if \(p\) is congruent to 1 modulo \(q\). As the Brieskorn manifolds belong to the spherical, NIL- or \(\widetilde{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})\)-geometry, the corresponding groups are isomorphic to properly discontinuous groups of isometries of these geometries, in particular it is clear when they are finite resp. infinite. Associated to each cyclic presentation is a polynomial (whose \(i\)'th coefficient is the exponent sum of the \(i\)'th generator in the defining word), and it turns out that, for the presentations \(G(n,p,q)\) as above, this polynomial coincides with the Alexander polynomial of the torus knot \(K(p,q)\).