The lattice of branched covers over the figure-eight knot (Q581880)

Every closed orientable 3-manifold is a branched cover of \(S^ 3\), branched over the figure-eight knot \(4_ 1\). This paper studies a portion of the lattice of branched covers for evidence that every such 3- manifold with infinite fundamental group is virtually Haken, in the strong sense that is has a finite (unbranched) cover whose group maps onto \({\mathbb{Z}}\). In Theorem 0.1 it is shown that if a branched cover a virtually Haken 3-manifold (branched over a link) is irreducible then it is virtually Haken. Theorem 2.1 describes particular Heegard splittings for branched covers of \(S^ 3\), branched over \(4_ 1\), and leads to convenient presentations of the fundamental groups. The rest of the paper is devoted to a tabulation of 57 manifolds which are such branched covers of \(S^ 3\), including all those of degree at most 10.