Incompressible spanning surfaces and maximal fibred submanifolds for a knot (Q810944)

Let \(K\subset S^ 3\) be an oriented knot and \(E=S^ 3-Int N(K)\) its exterior. The maximal fibred submanifold F(S) in E was introduced and studied by the author [Math. Ann. 284, 515-528 (1989; Zbl 0651.57007)], where S is an incompressible spanning surface for K. In this paper the relation of this submanifold to the number of incompressible spanning surfaces for K is studied. Put \(\gamma\) (K) \(=\) the number of the components of \(\partial F(S)-\partial E\). Then \(\gamma\) (K) becomes a knot invariant and it is shown that: (I) If \(\gamma\) (K)\(\geq 2\), then K has infinitely many non-equivalent minimal genus spanning surfaces, and (II) if \(\gamma (K)=1\), then K is a satellite knot with a companion knot \(K_ 1\) which is called the reduced knot for K, and the classification of the incompressible spanning surfaces for K is reduced to the classification of those for \(K_ 1\).