The Thurston norm, fibered manifolds and twisted Alexander polynomials (Q853480)

A semi-norm on the first cohomology group of a \(3\)-manifold was defined by \textit{W. P. Thurston} [Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 59, 99--130 (1986; Zbl 0585.57006)] in the following way: given an element of the first cohomology group (with integer coefficients) one can consider all surfaces which are Poincaré dual to the element. Associate to each surface the sum of the opposite of the Euler characteristic of its non spherical components (the sum being zero if all components are spherical). The minimum of this values over all possible surfaces is the norm of the given element. As an example, if the manifold is a knot exterior in \({\mathbb S}^3\), the norm of the generator of the first cohomology group is equal to twice the genus of the knot minus one, i.e. a Seifert surface for the knot is clearly dual to the generator, and a minimum genus Seifert surface realises the norm. Given a (connected) \(3\)-manifold, whose boundary is a finite, perhaps empty, collection of tori, \textit{C. T. McMullen} [Ann. Sci. Ecole Norm. Sup. 35, 153--171 (2002; Zbl 1009.57021)] proved that the Thurston norm \(\| \phi\| _T\) of a primitive element \(\varphi\) of the first cohomology group is bounded below by the degree of the Alexander polynomial (associated to the cover defined by \(\varphi\)) minus \(\varepsilon\), where \(\varepsilon\) is \(1\) if the manifold is closed, and \(0\) otherwise. Note that, by the above discussion, in the case where the manifold is a knot exterior in \({\mathbb S}^3\), McMullen's result reduces to Alexander's classical lower bound for the genus \(g\) of the knot \(K\), namely: \(2g\geq \deg\Delta_K(t)\). The main result of the paper is a generalization of McMullen's result to twisted Alexander polynomials, which arise from a representation \(\alpha\) of the fundamental group of the manifold to \(\text{GL}({\mathbb F},k)\), \({\mathbb F}\) a field. More precisely, it is shown that the Thurston norm of a non trivial element \(\phi\) of the first homology group can be bounded below by \(1/k\) times the degree of the Reidemeister torsion associated to \(\varphi\) and \(\alpha\) if the first twisted Alexander polynomial is not zero. The degree of the Reidemeister torsion is then expressed in terms of the degrees of the twisted Alexander polynomials. In the case where a surface dual to \(\varphi\) is the fibre of a fibration of the manifold over the circle, the authors show that the bound is attained if the fibre is neither a sphere nor a disc. This leads to a generalisation of Neuwirth's classical condition that the Alexander polynomial of a fibred knot is monic and its degree is equal to half the genus of the knot. The authors use this generalisation to show that certain \(12\)-crossing knots satisfying Neuwirth's condition are not fibred. They remark that the same result was later obtained by Rasmussen [\textit{P. Ozsváth} and \textit{Z. Szabó}, Duke Math. J. 129, 39--61 (2005; Zbl 1083.57042)] using Floer homology.