Toroidal Dehn fillings and generalized Scharlemann cycles (Q2493414)

Given an irreducible, atoroidal manifold \(M\), the authors study obstructions to the creation of a toroidal manifold via Dehn filling of a toric boundary component \(\partial_1 M\) of \(M\). More precisely, they consider the following situation: \(T\) is a punctured torus in \(M\) giving rise to an essential torus in the manifold obtained by Dehn filling \(M\) along the boundary slope of \(T\) contained in \(\partial_1 M\). \(F\) is another essential surface in \(M\) with boundary slope different from that of \(T\). The authors then prove that if the intersection graph of the two surfaces in \(F\) contains two quasi-disjoint generalized Scharlemann cycles, then the essential torus \(\widehat T\) obtained by capping off \(T\) is not minimal, i.e. the number of points of intersection between \(\widehat T\) and the core of the Dehn filling can be reduced by isotopy. The authors remark that this obstruction can be seen as a step forwards bounding the finite number of exceptional Dehn fillings.