ON BRANCHED COVERINGS OF LENS SPACES (Q4650682)

The authors consider a family of cyclically presented groups with balanced presentations \(P_n(p_i,\ell_i,k_i)\) depending of certain parameters: \(n\geq1\), \(k_i\in{\mathbb Z}\), \(p_i\geq1\), where \(p_i,\ell_i\) are coprime integers, for all \(i=1,\dots,n\). This family comprises two well-known families of groups: Sieradski's and Fibonacci's. The main result of the paper is the proof that the groups of the family are manifold groups. This is achieved by exhibiting a family of manifolds \(M_n(p_i,\ell_i,k_i)\) arising from polyhedral schemata, such that the given presentations are precisely those obtained from the associated spines. When \(n=2\), a stronger result is obtained, namely \(P_2(p_i,\ell_i,k_i)\) is a presentation for the fundamental group of the Seifert manifold defined by the invariants \((O0O: -1(p_1,\ell_1)(p_2,\ell_2)(k_1+k_2,k_1+k_2-1))\). In the last part of the paper, the subclass obtained by imposing that \(p_i=p\), \(\ell_i=\ell\) and \(k_i=k\), for all \(i=1,\dots,n\), is studied in more detail. The authors show that the manifold \(M_n(p_i,\ell_i,k_i)\) is an \(n\)-fold cyclic branched cover of the lens space \(L(p,\ell)\). When \(p=1\), i.e., \(L(p,\ell)\) is the \(3\)-sphere, the covers are branched over the \(2\)-bridge knot \((4k\ell-1)/2\ell\), which implies that the manifolds \(M_n(p_i,\ell_i,k_i)\), \(p_i=1\), \(\ell_i=\ell\) and \(k_i=k\) for all \(i=1,\dots,n\) and \(n\geq3\), are hyperbolic.