Small knot complements, exceptional surgeries and hidden symmetries (Q488559)

The paper investigates obstructions to small knot complements in \(S^{3}\) admitting hidden symmetries. Here, \textit{small knot complement} refers to that the knot complement does not contain a closed, embedded, essential surface, and a knot complement is called \textit{small} if it does not cover an orbifold with a rigid cusp. Recall that it is well known that the \textit{cusps} of an orientable 3-orbifold are one of the following five types: the \textit{non-rigid} Euclidean 2-orbifolds are the torus and \(S^{2}(2,2,2)\), whereas the \textit{rigid} orbifolds are \(S^{2}(2,4,4)\), \(S^{2}(2,3,6)\) and \(S^{2}(3,3,3)\). The following two theorems give the main results of the paper. { Theorem 1.} A small hyperbolic knot complement \(S^{3}\setminus K\) admits hidden symmetries, if it is not cyclically commensurable with another knot complement. { Theorem 2.} Let \(M\) be a manifold covered by a small hyperbolic knot complement \(S^{3}\setminus K\) that is not the figure-\(8\) knot complement. (1) If \(M\) admits two exceptional surgeries, then \(M\) does not cover an orbifold with a \(S^{2}(2,4,4)\) or \(S^{2}(3,3,3)\) cusp. (2) If \(M\)admits two exceptional surgeries and a nontrivial symmetry, then \(M\) does not cover an orbifold with a \(S^{2}(2,3,6)\) cusp.