Left-orderable fundamental groups and Dehn surgery on genus one 2-bridge knots (Q740536)

An \(L\)-space is a rational homology 3-sphere \(Y\) whose Heegaard Floer homology group \(\widehat{HF}(Y)\) is a free abelian group with rank equal to \(| H_1(Y,\mathbb{Z})|\). It is an open problem to characterize \(L\)-spaces without mentioning Heegaard Floer homology. In this direction, \textit{S. Boyer} et al. [Math. Ann. 356, No. 4, 1213--1245 (2013; Zbl 1279.57008)] conjectured that an irreducible rational homology 3-sphere is an \(L\)-space if and only if its fundamental group is not left-orderable. Recall that a non-trivial group \(G\) is left-orderable it it admits a strict total ordering that is invariant under left-multiplication, that is, if \(g<h\) then \(fg<fh\), for any \(f,g,h \in G\). The conjecture has been confirmed for several classes of 3-manifolds [Boyer, Gordon, Watson, op. cit.]. If \(K\) is a hyperbolic 2-bridge knot, it is known that no Dehn surgery on \(K\) produces an \(L\)-space [\textit{P. Ozsváth} and \textit{Z. Szabó}, Topology 44, No. 6, 1281--1300 (2005; Zbl 1077.57012)], hence it is expected that any non-trivial surgery on \(K\), will produce a manifold \(K(p/q)\) with left-orderable fundamental group. In this paper the authors consider the family of hyperbolic genus one two-bridge knots. It is shown that for any such knot \(K\) there is an interval \(I\) of surgeries, such that if \(r\in I\), then \(K(r)\) has left-orderable fundamental group. The proof is algebraic. It is shown that for \(r\in I\), there is an homomorphism \(\pi_1(K(r)) \rightarrow \widetilde{SL_2(\mathbb{R}})\), with non-abelian image. The group \(\widetilde{SL_2(\mathbb{R}})\) is known to be left-orderable [\textit{G. M. Bergman}, Pac. J. Math. 147, No. 2, 243--248 (1991; Zbl 0677.06007)], and hence by a result of \textit{S. Boyer} et al. [Ann. Inst. Fourier 55, No. 1, 243--288 (2005; Zbl 1068.57001)], it follows that \(\pi_1(K(r))\) is left-orderable. Similar results have been obtained by \textit{A. T. Tran} [J. Math. Soc. Japan 67, No. 1, 319--338 (2015; Zbl 1419.57028)].