Bounds on numerical boundary slopes for Montesinos knots (Q2472504)

For Montesinos knots, some properties of boundary slopes are studied. \textit{Allen E. Hatcher} and \textit{U. Oertel} [Topology 28, No.~4, 453--480 (1989; Zbl 0686.57006)] gave an algorithm to list all essential surfaces for a given Montesinos knot, developing the argument in \textit{Allen E. Hatcher} and \textit{W. Thurston} [Invent. Math. 79, 225--246 (1985; Zbl 0602.57002)]. This algorithm was also implemented by Dunfield. The first result shows that for a given non-meridional boundary slope \(P/Q\), if \(F\) is an essential surface properly embedded in the knot exterior of a Montesinos knot of length at least three, then the ratio \(-\chi(F)/| \partial F| \), where \(\chi(F)\) is the Euler characteristic of \(F\) and \(| \partial F| \) is the number of boundary components of \(F\), is bounded below by \(Q\), unless the knot is the \((-2,3,t)\)-pretzel knot for some odd \(t\geq 3\). For the \((-2,3,t)\)-pretzel knot with odd \(t\geq 3\), \(-\chi(F)/| \partial F| \) is bounded below by \(Q-1\). As an easy consequence, the cabling conjecture is reproved for Montesinos knots. Secondly, an upper bound for the difference between two non-meridional boundary slopes is given. Precisely, let \(R_i\) be a non-meridional slope for \(i=1,2\). Let \(F_i\) be an essential surface whose boundary slope is \(R_i\), and let \(s_i\) be the number of sheets of \(F_i\), that is, the number of points in the intersection between \(F_i\) and a small meridian of the knot. Then the difference \(| R_1-R_2| \) is less than or equal to \(-2(\chi(F_1)/s_1+\chi(F_2)/s_2)+4\). Most of the paper is devoted to the calculation using the edgepath system developed by Hatcher and Oertel. The last section contains a brief review of known results on boundary slopes and some problems.