Splittings of knot groups

Abstract: Let K be a knot of genus g. If K is fibered, then it is well known that the knot group pi(K) splits only over a free group of rank 2g. We show that if K is not fibered, then pi(K) splits over non-free groups of arbitrarily large rank. Furthermore, if K is not fibered, then pi(K) splits over every free group of rank at least 2g. However, pi(K) cannot split over a group of rank less than 2g. The last statement is proved using the recent results of Agol, Przytycki-Wise and Wise.

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The authors nicely complete the primary gesture of \textit{H. C. Lyon} in [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 157, 53--62 (1971; Zbl 0214.49901)]. In that paper, Lyons presented a (non-fibered) knot \(K\) of genus \(1\) with incompressible Seifert surfaces of arbitrary genus \(\geqslant 2\) spanning \(K\). This situation would give rise to HNN splittings of the knot group with amalgamating subgroups free of arbitrary even rank \(\geqslant 4\). In this paper the authors prove that the group of any non-fibered knot admits HNN splittings over free groups of arbitrarily high rank. In fact they show that given any non-fibered knot \(K\), with group \(\pi(K)\) and any integer \(k \geqslant 2\)(genus of \(K\)) there is an HNN splitting of \(\pi(K)\) with amalgamating subgroup free of rank \(k\). One notes that when \(k\) is odd these splittings do not arise directly from an incompressible surface. Moreover it is shown that \(\pi(K)\) does not split over any subgroup (free or not) of rank less than twice the genus of \(K\). Thus the genus of a knot may be defined completely group theoretically.

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