Isotopy and equivalence of knots in 3-manifolds
Geometric Topology
2026-05-21 v3
Abstract
We show that in a prime, closed, oriented 3-manifold M, equivalent knots are isotopic if and only if the orientation preserving mapping class group is trivial. In the case of irreducible, closed, oriented -manifolds we show the more general fact that every orientation preserving homeomorphism which preserves free homotopy classes of loops is isotopic to the identity. In the case of , we give infinitely many examples of knots whose isotopy classes are changed by the Gluck twist.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2007.05796,
title = {Isotopy and equivalence of knots in 3-manifolds},
author = {Paolo Aceto and Corey Bregman and Christopher W. Davis and JungHwan Park and Arunima Ray},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.05796},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
33 pages, 16 figures; final version