ISSN numbers are printed here 1 JSJ-decompositions of knot and link complements in S3 Ryan Budney Mathematics and Statistics, University of Victoria PO BOX 3045 STN CSC, Victoria, B.C., Canada V8W 3P4 Email:
[email protected] Abstract This paper is a survey of some of the most elementary consequences of the JSJ-decomposition and geometrization for knot and link complements in S3 . Formulated in the language of graphs, the result is the construction of a bijective correspondence between the isotopy classes of links in S3 and a class of vertex-labelled, finite acyclic graphs, called companionship graphs. This construction can be thought of as a uniqueness theorem for Schubert’s ‘satellite operations.’ We identify precisely which graphs are companionship graphs of knots and links respectively. We also describe how a large family of operations on knots and links affects companionship graphs. This family of operations is called ‘splicing’ and includes, among others, the operations of: cabling, connect-sum, Whitehead doubling and the deletion of a component. AMS Classification numbers Primary: 57M25 Secondary: 57M50, 57M15 Keywords: knot, link, JSJ, satellite, splicing, geometric structure, Brunnian arXiv:math/0506523v5 [math.GT] 29 Oct 2007 Copyright declaration is printed here 2 Ryan Budney 1 Introduction Although the JSJ-decomposition is well-known and frequently used to study 3-manifolds, it has been less frequently used to study knot complements in S3 , perhaps because in this setting it overlaps with Schubert’s ‘satellite’ constructions for knots. This paper studies the global nature of the JSJ-decomposition for knot and link complements in S3 .