Hyperbolicity of arborescent tangles and arborescent links

Abstract: In this paper, we study the hyperbolicity of arborescent tangles and arborescent links. We will explicitly determine all essential surfaces in arborescent tangle complements with non-negative Euler characteristic, and show that given an arborescent tangle T, the complement X(T) is non-hyperbolic if and only if T is a rational tangle, T=Q_m * T' for some m greater than or equal to 1, or T contains Qn for some n greater than or equal to 2. We use these results to prove a theorem of Bonahon and Seibenmann which says that a large arborescent link L is non-hyperbolic if and only if it contains Q2.

Review text

Arborescent tangles (respectively links) are obtained by gluing together non trivial rational tangles along discs in their boundary which contain precisely two endpoints of their strings. The main result of the paper is a classification of arborescent tangles with hyperbolic complements. This extends work by \textit{Y.-Q. Wu} [Math. Ann. 304, No.~3, 457--480 (1996; Zbl 0851.57019)] on arborescent tangles without closed components. The proof of the result is achieved by explicitly determining all essential surfaces of non-negative Euler characteristic in the tangle complements. In particular annular and toroidal tangles are also classified. These results are then applied to arborescent links. Together with work of \textit{U. Oertel} [Pac. J. Math. 111, 209--230 (1984; Zbl 0549.57004)] on Montesinos links, this proves an unpublished result of Bonahon and Siebenmann giving a necessary and sufficient condition for a large arborescent link to be hyperbolic.

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