Distance between toroidal surgeries on hyperbolic knots in the 3-sphere

Abstract

For a hyperbolic knot in the <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="3"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">3</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula>-sphere, at most finitely many Dehn surgeries yield non-hyperbolic <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="3"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">3</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula>-manifolds. As a typical case of such an exceptional surgery, a toroidal surgery is one that yields a closed <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="3"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">3</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula>-manifold containing an incompressible torus. The slope corresponding to a toroidal surgery, called a toroidal slope, is known to be integral or half-integral. We show that the distance between two integral toroidal slopes for a hyperbolic knot, except the figure-eight knot, is at most four.