Hyperbolic 2-fold branched coverings of links and their quotients. (Q700656)

The paper is devoted to the twin problem of knots: to find a complete system of geometric modifications of a knot \(K\) by which we can get any other knot with the same 2-fold branched covering (i.e. a 2-fold covering of 3-sphere branched over the knot). In the case of Seifert fibered covering spaces \(M\) the problem reduces to the case of Montesinos knots as branch sets and thus it is already solved. In the case of hyperbolic covering spaces \(M\) the situation is globally determined by the structure of the isometry group \(\text{Isom } (M)\). In the paper under review the authors study the orbifolds which are quotients of \(M\) by the action of a 2-group of isometries. This leads to a complete description of the geometry of the possible configurations of knots with the same hyperbolic 2-fold branched coverings. In particular, the authors show that there are at most 9 \(\pi\)-hyperbolic knots with the same 2-fold branched coverings.