Ideal points and incompressible surfaces in two-bridge knot complements (Q1335545)

At ideal points of the representation space of the fundamental group \(\Gamma \) of a 3-manifold into \(\text{PSL}_2 (\mathbb{C})\) a tree can be constructed and an action on it. This was used by Culler and Shalen to produce a nontrivial splitting of \(\Gamma\), and this leads to the existence of incompressible surfaces in the 3-manifold. In the case of 2- bridge knot spaces the presentation spaces have been studied by several authors and, on the other hand, the incompressible surfaces in them were determined by Hatcher and Thurston. In this paper the ingredients of the Culler-Shalen construction are investigated in detail in the 2-bridge case, in fact, the ideal points and their trees are described completely using the continued fractions associated with these knots as input. The correspondence between the ideal points and the incompressible surface is verified. This is a very meritorious contribution which offers some insight in the workings of a rather complicated machinery. The paper is not easy to read and assumes rather specific knowledge about the topic.