Taut foliations in knot complements (Q482368)

A transversely orientable codimension one foliation \(\mathcal{F}\) of a 3-manifold \(M\) is called taut if every leaf of \(\mathcal{F}\) intersects some closed transverse curve. The existence of a taut foliation in \(M\) provides much interesting topological information about both \(M\) and objects embedded in \(M.\) The main theorem of the paper is the following: let \(k\) be a nontrivial knot in \(S^{3}.\) Then there is an interval \((-a,b),\) where \(a>0\) and \(b>0,\) such that for any slope \(s\in(-a,b),\) the knot exterior \(M=S^{3}\backslash int(N(k))\) has a taut foliation whose restriction to the torus \(\partial M\) is a collection of circles of slope \(s.\) Moreover, by attaching disks along the boundary circles, the foliation can be extended to a taut foliation in \(M(s),\) where \(M(s)\) is the manifold obtained by performing Dehn surgery on \(k\) with surgery slope \(s.\) Notice that the theorem above generalizes a theorem of Gabai on zero frame surgery.