The distance between two separating, reducing slopes is at most \(4\) (Q2458869)

This paper deals with handle additions to three manifolds on boundary components \(F\) of genus at least 2. Generalizing the genus one case, a slope denotes the isotopy class of an unoriented simple closed curve in the boundary surface \(F\). A slope determines the gluing sphere of an index two handle, thus \(M(\alpha)\) denotes the resulting handle of index two and any other possible handle of index three. The slope \(\alpha\) is called separating if it divides \(F\) in two connected components, and reducing if \(M(\alpha)\) is reducible. When the boundary component has genus one, this operation is known as Dehn filling, and it has been very well studied in the literature. A 3-manifold is called simple if it does not contain any proper essential surface of nonnegative Euler characteristic: disk, annulus, torus, sphere, Möbius strip, projective plane or Klein bottle. Equivalently, a manifold is simple if it is hyperbolic with totally geodesic boundary (except for the genus one components). The main theorem of this note asserts that, for an orientable simple three manifold having a boundary component \(F\) of genus at least 2, the geometric intersection number of two separating reducing slopes in \(F\) is at most \(4\). The proof relies on Scharlemann cycles.