Arithmetic of the canonical component of the knot \(7_4\) (Q2075863)

This paper studies arithmetic properties of the canonical component of the variety of characters of the knot \(7_4\). To state the first result, consider Dehn surgeries with coefficients \((d,0)\), namely orbifolds with underlying manifold \(S^3\), branching locus the knot \(7_4\) and ramification index \(d\). For \(d\) sufficiently large such an orbifold is hyperbolic and has a holonomy representation that corresponds to a point in the canonical curve of characters of the knot \(7_4\). Two arithmetic objects can be associated to those orbifolds: a trace field and a quaternion algebra. This quaternion algebra may ramify at some place \(\mathfrak{p}\) of the number field, and \(\mathfrak{p}\) lies over some rational prime \(p\). Let \(T\) denote the set of all such rational primes \(p\) occurring in a ramification for some \((d,0)\). The first theorem asserts that \(T\) is infinite, providing evidence to a conjecture of \textit{T. Chinburg} et al. [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2022, No. 7, 4969--5036 (2022; Zbl 1494.57026)]. For the second result, the canonical component of the variety of characters of \(7_4\) is an elliptic curve (after desingularizing its projective completion). The theorem asserts that the points in the variety of characters corresponding to a Dehn surgery have infinite order in the Mordell-Weil group of the elliptic curve.