English

Non-characterizing slopes for hyperbolic knots

Geometric Topology 2018-04-11 v1

Abstract

A non-trivial slope rr on a knot KK in S3S^3 is called a characterizing slope if whenever the result of rr-surgery on a knot KK' is orientation preservingly homeomorphic to the result of rr-surgery on KK, then KK' is isotopic to KK. Ni and Zhang ask: for any hyperbolic knot KK, is a slope r=p/qr = p/q with p+q|p| + |q| sufficiently large a characterizing slope? In this article we answer this question in the negative by demonstrating that there is a hyperbolic knot KK in S3S^3 which has infinitely many non-characterizing slopes. As the simplest known example, the hyperbolic knot 868_6 has no integral characterizing slopes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1601.01985,
  title  = {Non-characterizing slopes for hyperbolic knots},
  author = {Kenneth L. Baker and Kimihiko Motegi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1601.01985},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

13 pages, 7 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T12:25:46.912Z