Closed incompressible surfaces in the complements of positive knots (Q699674)

The order of a closed surface in a knot complement is defined by using the image of the induced inclusion map on the first homology. The main result of the paper is that any closed incompressible surface in a positive knot complement has non-zero order. It follows that positive knots cannot bound non-free incompressible Seifert surfaces. Finally, the splittability and the primeness of positive links is detected from their positive diagrams.