Toroidal and Klein bottle boundary slopes (Q861940)

The author investigates the intersection theory of two punctured genus-one surfaces in a compact, connected, orientable, irreducible \(3\)-manifold. In particular, given \((S, \partial S), (T, \partial T) \subset (M, T_0)\), where \(T_0\) is an incompressible torus boundary component of the \(3\)-manifold \(M\), the author looks at the minimal geometric intersection number, \(\Delta\), of \(\partial S\) and \(\partial T\) on the torus \(T_0\). The case when \(S\) and \(T\) are punctured tori was characterized by [\textit{C. McA. Gordon}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 350, No.~5, 1713--1790 (1998; Zbl 0896.57011)]. The author extends Gordon's result to allow either \(S\) or \(T\) to be a punctured Klein bottle and gives a simplified proof of Gordon's result using a simplified reduction process on the graphs of intersection of \(S\) and \(T\). A torus \(F\) is \(\mathcal{K}\)-incompressible if \(F\) is either incompressible or generated by an essential Klein bottle. The main result of the current paper is the following theorem. Theorem 1.1. Let \((S, \partial S), (T, \partial T) \subset (M, T_0)\) be \(\mathcal{K}\)-incompressible tori and let \(\Delta = \Delta(\partial S, \partial T)\). If the pair \((M, T_0)\) is not cabled, then \(\Delta \leq 8\), and if \(\Delta \geq 6\) then \(| \partial S| , | \partial T| \leq 2\). After a review of the definitions and properties of the graphs of intersection of two surfaces in \(M\), the author proves a number of technical results involving bounds on the sizes of collections of mutually parallel edges in the graphs of intersection. In the final section of the paper, the author uses the results on parallel edges to eliminate several cases and analyze three remaining cases to prove the main theorem.