On closed oriented surfaces in the 3-sphere

arXiv1902.05030MaRDI QIDQ6314036FDOQ6314036

Authors: Giovanni Bellettini, Maurizio Paolini, Yi-Sheng Wang 

Publication date: 13 February 2019

Abstract: In this paper we study embeddings of oriented connected closed surfaces in $mathbb{S}^3$. We define a complete invariant, the fundamental span, for such embeddings, generalizing the notion of the peripheral system of a knot group. From the fundamental span, several computable invariants are derived and employed to study handlebody knots, bi-knotted surfaces, and chirality of knots. These invariants are capable to distinguish inequivalent handlebody knots and bi-knotted surfaces with homeomorphic complements. Particularly, we obtain an alternative proof of the inequivalence of Ishii et al.'s handlebody knots $5_1$ and $6_4$, and also construct an infinite family of pairs of inequivalent bi-knotted surfaces with homeomorphic complements. An interpretation of Fox's invariant in terms of the fundamental span is discussed and used to show $9_{42}$ and $10_{71}$ in the Rolfsen knot table are chiral; their chirality is known to be undetectable by the Jones and HOMFLY-PT polynomials.

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Fundamental group, presentations, free differential calculus (57M05) General geometric structures on low-dimensional manifolds (57M50) Embeddings in differential topology (57R40) Surgery and handlebodies (57R65)

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