Meridian of a solid torus 2026-10-05
A meridian of a solid torus is a primitive curve on its boundary that bounds an embedded disk in the solid torus.
By the preceding sections, is a nowhere-zero closed differential form and . Injectivity of gives . The definition of de Rham cohomology then gives
for a smooth , with no critical points. If the boundary were connected, would make constant there. A nonconstant function on a compact manifold attains both extrema; a value differing from the common boundary value gives an interior extremum, contradicting . If were constant everywhere there would be the same contradiction. Empty boundary is also impossible, because an extremum would necessarily be interior. Thus , the boundary obstruction for commuting volume-preserving vector fields.
The solid torus retracts onto its first circle. Its degree-one de Rham cohomology is generated by that circle's angular one-form, which restricts to a nonzero class on ; hence the restriction map is injective. Its boundary is connected. Extensions of the two specified coordinate vector fields would be tangent there and would satisfy all the forbidden conditions. Therefore no such pair of extensions exists, for any volume form.
Use the meridian of a knot and Seifert longitude of the unknot on its boundary torus. The unknot's knot exterior is a solid torus whose disk-bounding curve is . A genus-one Heegaard diagram is therefore
Here the horizontal coordinate is and the vertical coordinate is . The drawing uses a small translate of to avoid intersections on the edge of the square; opposite edges are identified. The algebraic intersection number of curves on an oriented surface has absolute value five.
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Starting with , attach a three-dimensional two-handle along , using its surface framing, and cap the resulting sphere with a three-handle. This gives the solid torus on that side. Attach a two-handle along , again using the surface framing, and cap its sphere with a three-handle. The second solid torus has its disk-bounding curve identified with , so the resulting oriented lens space is precisely the specified Dehn filling.
The solid torus supplied by the side has fundamental group generated by the image of , while is trivial. The two-handle imposes . The three-handles do not change the fundamental group, so
Write . Filling one end of times an annulus gives a solid torus, so is a solid torus. The prescribed algebraic intersection number of curves on an oriented surface convention gives . Hence
In , the first Dehn filling imposes , while . Therefore
The class is primitive because , a consequence of . It is therefore the disk-bounding meridian of a solid torus of . Since meets it once, Dehn filling along glues two solid torus pieces with disk boundaries meeting once. This is the standard genus-one Heegaard splitting of , so
To identify the regular fiber geometrically, put it on their common boundary torus. Invert the displayed basis change:
Here bounds a disk in the newly attached solid torus and bounds a disk in . Thus the curve has winding numbers and in the two complementary solid torus pieces. Both coefficients are positive and , so it is the positive torus knot. This identifies the torus knot directly from the genus-one splitting, without invoking a theorem specifically about torus knots.
All classes in the nontrivial homological equalities are taken in , where . The two internal gluing torus components still have inclusion maps into this knot exterior. Interpreting the maps instead as maps into the closed would make every displayed class zero.
Before the two Dehn fillings, has generators and relation . The Dehn fillings add and . Put . Eliminating the relations using gives
For completeness, the three relation rows in generators are , , when computing the quotient by . Their determinant is , so really generates the entire first homology group, and no finite torsion or index is hidden in the elimination.
Orient each exceptional-fiber longitude by . In the boundary basis , write and , where . Then
The filled meridian of a solid torus maps to zero, and , yielding
Adding multiples of to has no effect. The word “any” therefore means any longitude with this compatible orientation; negating a longitude would negate the corresponding equality.
To compute Turaev torsion, use the general product formula and multiplicativity under gluing along torus components. For a pair of pants, , so the unfilled piece contributes . The two filling solid torus pieces contribute and . With , the equalities above give , , and . Therefore
Here allows the unit : a fully refined Turaev torsion requires an Euler structure and a homology orientation, neither of which the statement specifies. The displayed rational function is the representative whose expansion at starts with , equivalently the standard nonnegative-exponent normalization.
Choose a fiber monodromy representative fixing the boundary of the fiber Seifert surface pointwise. The boundary of each fiber is the Seifert longitude, precisely the slope used by zero Dehn filling. Attach the filling solid torus as , matching with the boundary of the fiber at . The fibers cap off to closed topological surfaces of the same genus ; extend the fiber monodromy across the disk by the identity. Thus
This is a foliation by fibers of a bundle over , and every leaf is compact with genus .
Choose a point in the interior of the capping disk, which fixes. Its suspension is an embedded closed curve in the mapping torus. It is transverse to the foliation and meets every fiber once. Hence every leaf meets a closed transversal to a foliation, which is the defining criterion for a taut foliation. Therefore the fiber foliation is taut.
Seifert fiber 2026-10-05
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.