Knotted handle decomposing spheres for handlebody-knots (Q2339659)

This paper looks at knotted handlebodies, a field of study pioneered by the first author in 2008. It proves the existence of a canonical set of handle decomposing spheres for those whose exterior is boundary-irreducible, uses this to distinguish examples tabled by the first two authors (with others) in 2012, and shows that for genus 2 such embeddings are determined by their exteriors. As \textit{A. Mizusawa} and \textit{J. Murakami} noted in [J. Knot Theory Ramifications 22, No. 11, Article ID 1350068, 21 p. (2013; Zbl 1282.57019)]: ``If the genus of the handlebody is 1, the handlebody-knot is regarded as an ordinary knot.'', ergo cf. [\textit{C. McA. Gordon} and \textit{J. Luecke}, J. Am. Math. Soc. 2, No. 2, 371--415 (1989; Zbl 0678.57005)].