Cosmetic contact surgeries along transverse knots and the knot complement problem (Q1731331)

A contact structure on a smooth 3-manifold $M$ is a completely non-integrable 2-plane field $\xi\subset TM$, i.e., there exists a globally defined 1-form $\alpha$ on $M$ such that $\alpha\wedge d\alpha$ is a volume form of $M$. The standard contact structure $\xi_{\text{std}}$ on $S^3\subset\mathbb{R}^4$ is given in Cartesian coordinates as $\xi_{\text{std}}=\ker(x_1 dy_1-y_1 dx_1+x_2 dy_2-y_2 dx_2)$. A knot $T$ in a contact 3-manifold $(M,\xi)$ is called transverse if the contact planes $\xi$ are everywhere transverse to the tangent space of the knot. An embedded disc $D\to M$ in a contact manifold $(M,\xi)$ is called overtwisted if $T_pD=\xi(p)$ for all points $p\in\partial D$. A contact structure is tight if there is no overtwisted disc, otherwise it is overtwisted. If $T$ is a transverse knot in $(M,\xi)$, then $(M\backslash T,\xi)$ is called the complement of $T$ and $(M\backslash\overset{\circ}{\nu T},\xi)$ an exterior of $T$, where $\nu T$ is a standard tubular neighborhood of $T$. If $T$ is a transverse knot in $(M,\xi)$, $\nu T$ is a standard tubular neighborhood, $r$ is a non-trivial simple closed curve on $\partial(\nu T)$, and $\varphi$ is a diffeomorphism such that $\varphi:\partial(S^1\times D^2)\to\partial(\nu T)$, $\mu_0\mapsto r$, then $(M_T(r),\xi_T(r))=(S^1\times D^2,\xi_S)+(M\backslash\overset{\circ}{\nu T},\xi)/\sim$, $\partial(S^1\times D^2)\ni p\sim\varphi(p)\in\partial(\nu T)$ is said to be obtained from $M$ by contact Dehn surgery along $T$ with slope $r$, where the contact structure $\xi_S$ on $S^1\times D^2$ is chosen, such that $\xi_S$ and $\xi$ fit together to a global new contact structure $\xi_T$ on $M_T(r)$. If $(M_T(r),\xi_T(r))$ is again contactomorphic to $(M,\xi)$, then it is said to be obtained by cosmetic contact Dehn surgery along a transverse knot. \par In this paper, the author studies cosmetic contact Dehn surgeries along transverse knots in $(M,\xi_{\text{std}})$. From the result of \textit{J. Etnyre} and \textit{R. Ghrist} in [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 127, No. 12, 3697--3706 (1999; Zbl 0962.53048)] it follows that cosmetic contact surgeries do exist along a transverse unknot with self-linking number $\text{sl}=-1$. The main result of the present paper states that any contact Dehn surgery with topological framing $1/n$ along a stabilized transverse unknot yields an overtwisted 3-sphere. Also, the author shows that if $T$ is a transverse knot in $(M,\xi_{\text{std}})$ not isotopic to a transverse unknot with $\text{sl}=-1$, then there exists no non-trivial contact Dehn surgery along $T$ yielding $(M,\xi_{\text{std}})$, and that two transverse knots in $(M,\xi_{\text{std}})$ with contactomorphic exteriors are isotopic.