Cyclic branched coverings of some pretzel links (Q2250846)

The authors consider a family of closed orientable 3-manifolds \(P_{n,p,q}\) depending on three integer parameters \(n \geq 1\), \(p = 0,\dots, n-1\) and \(q=1, \dots, n\). The manifold \(P_{n,p,q}\) is obtained from a certain polyhedral three cell having \(4n\) pentagonal faces \(X_i\), \(X_i'\), \(Y_i\), \(Y_i'\) for \(i=1,\dots,n\), by pairwise identification of \(X_i\) with \(X_i'\) (resp. \(Y_i\) with \(Y_i'\)) according to a rule specified in terms of a cyclic \(p\)-shifting (resp. \(q\)-shifting). A geometric presentation of the fundamental group and a cyclic \(n\)-fold branched covering representation of such manifolds is provided, extending previous results on analogous families of 3-manifolds.