Surgery presentations of coloured knots and of their covering links (Q2389454)

A \(G\)-colored knot in a closed orientable 3-manifold \(M\) is a surjective representation \(p:\pi_1(\text{cl}(M-N(K))\to G\). To each such knot \(K\) there corresponds a closed 3-manifold, the (irregular) dihedral branched covering space, with the branching set over the knot forming a link in it. If \(L\subseteq M-K\) is a framed link each of whose components is specified by a curve lying in ker \(p\) then surgery along \(L\) results in a new \(G\)-colored knot \(K'\) in a 3-manifold \(M'\) together with a new presentation \(p'\). In such a case \((K',p')\) has been obtained from \((K,p)\) by surgery in \(\ker p\). A complete set of base knots for a group \(G\) is a set \(\Phi\) of \(G\)-colored knots \((K_i,p_i)\) in 3-manifolds \(M_i\) such that any \(G\)-colored knot \((K,p)\) in \(S^3\) can be obtained from some \((K_i,p_i)\in \Phi\) by surgery in ker \(p_i\). Here \(G=D_{2n}\) (\(n\) odd) and \(M\) is usually \(S^3\). In this article the authors describe effective algorithms and combinatorial procedures for constructing such presentations of irregular dihedral branched coverings. They describe two different approaches to the problem, corresponding to two very different complete sets of base-knots for \(D_{2n}\). As a by-product of these investigations the authors prove the conjecture that two \(D_{2n}\)-colored knots are related by a sequence of surgeries along \(\pm 1\)-framed unknots in the kernel of the representation if and only if they have the same colored untying invariant (a \(\mathbb Z_n\)-valued algebraic invariant of \(D_{2n}\)-colored knots). See [\textit{D. Moskovich}, Algebr. Geom. Topol. 6, 673--697 (2006; Zbl 1098.57007)] for the original conjecture.