Related papers: Meridional Rank of Knots Whose Exterior is a Graph…
We prove that links with meridional rank 3 whose 2-fold branched covers are graph manifolds are 3-bridge links. This gives a partial answer to a question by S. Cappell and J. Shaneson on the relation between the bridge numbers and…
The Meridional Rank Conjecture asks whether the bridge number of a knot in $S^3$ is equal to the minimal number of meridians needed to generate the fundamental group of its complement. In this paper we investigate the analogous conjecture…
We prove that the meridional rank and the bridge number of the Whitehead double of a prime algebraically tame knot coincide. Algebraically tame knots are a broad generalization of torus knots and iterated cable knots.
We show the existence of infinitely many knot exteriors where each of which contains meridional essential surfaces of any genus and (even) number of boundary components. That is, the compact surfaces that have a meridional essential…
It is well known that there exist knots with Seifert surfaces of arbitrarily high genus. In this paper, we show the existence of infinitely many knot exteriors where each of which has longitudinal essential surfaces of any positive genus…
In this paper we study some consequences of the author's classification of graph manifolds by their profinite fundamental groups. In particular we study commensurability, the behaviour of knots, and relation to mapping classes. We prove…
We prove the meridional rank conjecture for arborescent links associated to plane trees with the following property: all branching points carry a straight branch to at least three leaves. The proof involves an upper bound on the bridge…
We prove the meridional rank conjecture for twisted links and arborescent links associated to bipartite trees with even weights. These links are substantial generalizations of pretzels and two-bridge links, respectively. Lower bounds on…
Given any closed, connected, orientable $3$--manifold and integers $g\geq g(M), D > 0$, we show the existence of knots in $M$ whose genus $g$ bridge number is greater than $D$. These knots lie in a page of an open book decomposition of $M$,…
If a knot K in a closed, orientable 3-manifold M has a bridge surface T with distance at least 3 in the curve complex of T - K, then the genus of any essential surface in its exterior with non-empty, non-meridional boundary gives rise to an…
We define the {\it Wirtinger number} of a link, an invariant closely related to the meridional rank. The Wirtinger number is the minimum number of generators of the fundamental group of the link complement over all meridional presentations…
We introduce a new numerical knot invariant, termed the \textit{segment number}, which is derived from partitioned knot diagrams subject to specific over/under-crossing constraints. We prove that a knot is non-trivial if and only if its…
Suppose $K$ is a knot in a closed 3-manifold $M$ such that $\bar{M-N(K)}$ is irreducible. We show that for any positive integer $b$ there exists a triangulation of $\bar{M-N(K)}$ such that any weakly incompressible bridge surface for $K$ of…
A diagonal surface in a link exterior M is a properly embedded, incompressible, boundary incompressible surface which furthermore has the same number of boundary components and same slope on each component of the boundary of M. We derive a…
Given a knot $K$ in $S^3$, a question raised by Cappell and Shaneson asks if the meridional rank of $K$ equals the bridge number of $K$. Using augmentations in knot contact homology we consider the persistence of equality between these two…
We show that for each pair of positive integers g and n, there are infinitely many tunnel number one knots, whose exteriors contain an essential meridional surface of genus g, and with 2n boundary components. We also show that for each…
We determine all (1,1)-knots which admit an essential meridional surface, namely, we give a construction which produces (1,1)-knots having essential meridional surfaces, and show that if a (1,1)-knot admits an essential meridional surface…
Given any link $L\subseteq S^3$, we show that it is possible to embed an unknot $U$ in its complement so that the link $L\cup U$ satisfies the Meridional Rank Conjecture (MRC). The bridge numbers in our construction fit into the equality…
We show the existence of an infinite collection of hyperbolic knots where each of which has in its exterior meridional essential planar surfaces of arbitrarily large number of boundary components, or, equivalently, that each of these knots…
We show the existence of infinitely many prime knots each of which having in their complements meridional essential surfaces with two boundary components and arbitrarily high genus.