Boundary slopes (nearly) bound cyclic slopes (Q2571364)

Boundary slopes are the slopes in the boundary torus of a knot complement M which are realized as the boundary slope of an essential surface embedded in M. Cyclic slopes are the slopes along which the Dehn filling of M gives rise to a manifold with cyclic fundamental group. The relation between the boundary slopes and cyclic slopes was first studied in [\textit{M. Culler, C. McA. Gordon, J. Luecke} and \textit{P. B. Shalen}, Ann. Math. (2) 125, 237--300 (1987; Zbl 0633.57006); \textit{S. Boyer} and \textit{X. Zhang}, Stud. Adv. Math. 2.1, 62--79 (1997; Zbl 0888.57028)]. In [Invent. Math. 136, No. 3, 623--657 (1999; Zbl 0928.57012)], \textit{N. M. Dunfield} proved that the cyclic slopes lie within distance one of boundary slopes. On the other hand, Motegi raised a question, ``Are Seifert slopes bounded by boundary slopes?'' (Seifert slopes are those which produce Seifert fibred manifolds by Dehn filling). In this paper the author uses the result of Dunfield [loc. cit.] to show that cyclic slopes must lie in \((r-1/2, R+1/2)\), where \(r\) and \(R\) are the minimum and maximum boundary slopes, respectively. The author investigates the geometry of fundamental polygons of the Culler-Shalen norm [Culler et al., loc. cit.] to give the estimate. This result gives a support for Motegi's question positively in the following sense: if the geometrization conjecture is true, the Dehn surgery via cyclic slopes will give Lens spaces, which are Seifert fibred. Thus cyclic slopes would be Seifert slopes.