Braid equivalences in 3-manifolds with rational surgery description (Q500940)

This paper gives mixed braid equivalences from both geometric and algebraic viewpoints. It is well-known that any closed connected orientable \(3\)-manifold, say \(M\), is obtained by Dehn surgery on a link, say \(K_0\), in the \(3\)-sphere. Hence a link \(K\) in \(M\) can be represented by a mixed link in the \(3\)-sphere which is the union of \(K\) and \(K_0\) with surgery coefficients. Its braid presentation is called a mixed braid. If \(M\) is obtained by integral surgery on \(K_0\), then such equivalences have already been obtained by the second author et al. (cf. [Topology Appl. 78, No. 1--2, 95--122 (1997; Zbl 0879.57007); Compos. Math. 142, No. 4, 1039--1062 (2006; Zbl 1156.57007)]). The authors, in this paper, generalize the results to the case that \(M\) is obtained by rational surgery on \(K_0\) in the \(3\)-sphere. The first main theorem, which is given from the geometric viewpoint, states that two links in \(M\) are isotopic if and only if their mixed braids can be transformed into each other by a finite sequence of two moves: \(L\)-moves and band moves. The second main theorem, which is in turn given from the algebraic viewpoint, states that two links in \(M\) are isotopic if and only if their mixed braid representatives in the ``braid group'' are equivalent up to four moves: \(M\)-moves, \(M\)-conjugation, combed loop conjugation and combed algebraic braid band moves. The authors end this paper by mentioning that the results contain a lot of applications: to the study of Jones type invariants for links in \(M\), to the study of skein modules of \(M\) and to a computational approach to the Witten invariants.