Cyclic branched coverings of 2-bridge knots (Q1974105)

A cyclic presentation \(G_n(w)\) of a group is a presentation with \(n\) (ordered) generators whose relations are obtained by cyclically permuting the generators in a word \(w\) in these generators. The polynomial associated to a presentation \(G_n(w)\) has as its coefficients the exponent sums of the generators in the word \(w\). The question arises when such presentations \(G_n(w)\) are geometric, that is, correspond to spines of closed 3-manifolds \(M_n(w)\), and in particular whether such 3-manifolds arise as cyclic branched coverings of knots in the 3-sphere; also, does in this case the above polynomial coincide with the Alexander polynomials of the knot? In the present paper, the cyclic branched coverings of the 2-bridge knots are studied. Using the representation of 3-manifolds by railroad systems (and also by pairwise identification of the boundary faces of a triangulated 3-ball) it is shown that the cyclic branched coverings of the 2-bridge knots admit cyclic presentations which are geometric (arising from Heegaard diagrams with rotational symmetries), and that the above polynomials are in fact the Alexander polynomials of the corresponding knots.