English

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 33-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 S1×S2S^1\times S^2, we give infinitely many examples of knots whose isotopy classes are changed by the Gluck twist.

Keywords

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