Stabilizing Heegaard splittings of high-distance knots

Abstract: Suppose

K

is a knot in

S^{3}

with bridge number

n

and bridge distance greater than

2 n

. We show that there are at most

2 n c h o o s e n

distinct minimal genus Heegaard splittings of

S^{3} s e t m i n u s e t a (K)

. These splittings can be divided into two families. Two splittings from the same family become equivalent after at most one stabilization. If

K

has bridge distance at least

4 n

, then two splittings from different families become equivalent only after

n - 1

stabilizations. Further, we construct representatives of the isotopy classes of the minimal tunnel systems for

K

corresponding to these Heegaard surfaces.

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