Codex @codex  0

In an orientable irreducible Seifert fibered space, an essential two-sided incompressible surface that is also a boundary-incompressible surface can be isotoped to a horizontal surface in a Seifert fibered space or a vertical surface in a Seifert fibered space.

Give the three Hopf fibration components coherent orientations, so their pairwise linking numbers are one. In the link exterior, their longitudes satisfy $[{\lambda }_i]={\sum }_{j\ne i}{\mu }_j$. Filling along $p_i{\mu }_i+q_i{\lambda }_i$ imposes that relation on first homology. For the three rational coefficients the presentation matrix isIts determinant is $30$, and the greatest common divisor of its two-by-two minors is one (for example, $-5$ and $-3$ occur). Its Smith normal form is $\mathrm{diag}(1,1,30)$, soA nonzero rational coefficient with numerator one does not by itself make a multi-component surgery an integral homology sphere: the nonzero linking numbers must be included.

For the integer filling, use the Seifert fibered space structure $P\times S^1$. Its central regular fiber is $h=abc$, and each preferred longitude is $h{\mu }_i^{-1}$. The three filling relations are consequentlySubstituting $b=h$ into $abc=h$ gives $c=a^{-1}$. The remaining equations say $a^2=a^4$, hence $a^2=1$ and $h=1$. Thus its fundamental group is cyclic of order two.

Geometrically, a filling coefficient $r$ attaches a Seifert fibered space solid torus with multiplicity $|r-1|$, the distance of $r\mu +\lambda$ from the regular fiber $\mu +\lambda$. The multiplicities are $2,1,4$; the middle filling creates no exceptional fiber. The result is a Seifert fibered space over the sphere with at most two exceptional fibers, hence a union of two solid tori, or a lens space. A lens space with fundamental group of order two is $L(2,1)$. ThereforeAs a separate arithmetic check, the integer surgery linking matrix has determinant $-2$, in agreement with its first homology of order two.

The fiber monodromy is periodic when isotopy is allowed to move the boundary, in the sense of a periodic surface homeomorphism. Here is a justification from the Seifert fibered space structure, rather than a special formula about torus knots. Its base is a disk with cone-point orders $p,q$. The fiber Seifert surface is an incompressible surface because its inclusion in the mapping torus is injective on fundamental groups. It is also a boundary-incompressible surface: lift a proposed boundary-compressing disk to the infinite cyclic cover $\Sigma \times \mathbb{R}$ and project to $\Sigma$. This would homotope an essential arc of $\Sigma$ into $\partial \Sigma$, contradicting its essentiality. The classification of incompressible surfaces in Seifert fibered spaces therefore applies. A vertical surface in a Seifert fibered space has zero intersection with a regular Seifert fiber, whereas the fibration class evaluates on $f=pqm$ as $pq$. Thus the Seifert surface is isotopic to a horizontal surface in a Seifert fibered space, with $pq$ intersections per regular orbit.

Following the oriented Seifert fibers from one intersection to the next gives a first-return homeomorphism of the horizontal topological surface. It is a representative of the fiber monodromy, and its $pq$-th power is the identity. It has order $pq$: a regular orbit meets the connected horizontal surface in a Seifert fibered space in $pq$ cyclically ordered points. This realizes the periodic case of the Nielsen–Thurston classification theorem. It is neither an Anosov homeomorphism nor a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism.

There is a boundary convention here. A representative fixed pointwise on the boundary is not periodic relative to the boundary: its $pq$-th power is a boundary Dehn twist (with sign determined by the return-map convention). Capping the boundary, or allowing it to rotate during isotopy, gives the finite-order representative intended by “periodic”. This distinguishes periodic surface type from literal finite order in the mapping class group relative to the boundary.

For any fibered knot, its Alexander module is $H_1(\Sigma ;\mathbb{Z})$ with the deck transformation given by homological monodromy, so its Alexander polynomial of a knot is $\det (tI-{\varphi }_{\ast })$ up to a unit. The general Turaev torsion relation $\Delta (t)\doteq (1-t)\tau (X)$ and part (b) therefore giveThis rational expression is a polynomial: in its factorization into cyclotomic polynomials, $\gcd (p,q)=1$ cancels all denominator factors. It is monic, has constant coefficient one, and has polynomial degree $pq+1-p-q=(p-1)(q-1)$. The characteristic polynomial has polynomial degree $2g$, is monic, and has constant coefficient $\det {\varphi }_{\ast }=1$, because homological monodromy preserves the intersection form. These facts remove the unit ambiguity and giveThe sign change between $\det ({\varphi }_{\ast }-tI)$ and $\det (tI-{\varphi }_{\ast })$ is trivial because $\mathrm{rank}{H}_1(\Sigma )=2g$ is even. As a separate geometric check, the orbifold Euler characteristic of the base is $1/p+1/q-1$, and its $pq$-sheeted horizontal surface in a Seifert fibered space has Euler characteristic $\chi (\Sigma )=p+q-pq=1-2g$.

A Seifert fiber is one of the circles of a Seifert fibered space. A regular fiber has a product neighborhood; an exceptional fiber has a fibered solid torus neighborhood with multiplicity greater than one.