On malnormal peripheral subgroups of the fundamental group of a \(3\)-manifold (Q2339161)

A subgroup \(H\) of a group \(G\) is \textit{malnormal} if \(gHg^{-1}\cap H=1\) for all \(g\in G-H\). The authors show that for a non-trivial knot in \(S^3\), the peripheral subgroup of the knot group \(G_K\) is malnormal in \(G_K\) except if \(K\) is a torus knot, a cable knot, or a composite knot. The exceptional cases are exactly the knots whose exteriors contain essential annuli. More generally, let \(M\) be a compact, connected, orientable, and irreducible \(3\)-manifold that has at least one torus boundary component \(T\), and assume \(M\) is different from a solid torus or \(T{\times}I\). Let \(P\) be the peripheral subgroup corresponding to \(T\) of the fundamental group \(G\) of \(M\) and let \(V\) be the component of the JSJ-decomposition of \(M\) that contains \(T\). The authors prove that \(P\) is not malnormal in \(G\) if and only if \(V\) is a Seifert fiber space. The authors state that they have non-expert readers in mind and provide a long appendix that is a very readable outline of the results and techniques in \(3\)-manifold topology which are used in the proofs.