Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 14 5 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Interpret the paired disks as the three one-handles of a genus-three handlebody. Attach two-handles on the two displayed curves. Orient the three disk-crossing generators as . Reading the signed crossings, starting at the upper-left portion of each attaching curve and changing the start point when needed, givesThe first says and the second . Thus the fundamental group presentation isHere . Cyclically changing the starting point, reversing an attaching curve, or changing generator orientations gives equivalent presentations. With , these relations make central; eliminating givesFor the topological identification, thicken the diagram's two nested bands and identify the three paired disk mouths. The complement of those bands is the product region of a pair of pants with a circle; its two compressing curves are exactly and . Equivalently, the standard cell decomposition of this product has three one-handles and the two commuting two-handle attachments shown. Thus this is a generalized Heegaard diagram of .
The Hopf fibration of has three disjoint regular fibers whose removal leaves . Its three fibers are the components of the torus link , as is also apparent from the full three-strand twist in the later link diagram. This identifies with that link exterior, using the diagram and product structure rather than just its fundamental group. In particular it is a link exterior in the three-sphere.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 14 5 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Orient the two components coherently through the twist region and assign meridian variables . The link diagram is the torus link . It is obtained from the three-component torus link of part 2 by rational Dehn surgery on the third component: removing its meridional disk adds full twists to the original single full twist. For , this just means meridionally deleting the third component.
Write for the removed component's meridian. Its longitude is homologous to , so the filling imposes . Under this substitution, the polynomial of part 2 becomes . The filling core is homologous, up to sign, to . The Turaev-torsion Dehn-filling formula therefore removes the factor , givingFor positive this is the Laurent polynomial . For it is one, as for a Hopf link; for it is zero, as for the two-component unlink. For negative the displayed quotient is still a Laurent polynomial and agrees with the mirrored positive-twist answer up to a unit. These checks also fix the twist count: the exponent is , rather than .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 iii Paper 112 5 b Solution 2026-09-28
Distinct components of the positively oriented torus link have linking number one. Since every component also has framing relative to the Seifert framing, the surgery linking matrix and hence the intersection form of the surgery trace areIts Smith normal form is . The surgery exact sequence, equivalently the kernel and cokernel of , gives
In Kirby calculus, sliding the components over one chosen component diagonalizes the framed link to a split -framed unknot and zero-framed unknots. Hencewhere denotes boundary connected sum.
Torus knot Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For nonzero coprime integers , the torus knot lies on a standard unknotted torus in the three-sphere and winds times meridionally and times longitudinally. Here a meridian of a solid torus goes around the small cross-section of the doughnut, while the longitudinal direction goes around its central hole. The integers count signed turns, so changing one sign gives the mirror of a link of the torus knot. In this article is always the meridional count and the longitudinal count.
An explicit parametric curve in three-dimensional Euclidean space iswhere . Its cylindrical radius satisfies , the equation of the supporting torus. Its meridional angle is and its longitudinal angle is : this checks the convention directly rather than relying on the picture. Its squared speed isIf two parameter values give the same point, their difference satisfies . Bézout's identity for the coprime integers then gives . Thus the loop closes and is an injective function on the parameter circle, with nonzero derivative; it is a smooth embedding.
For example, , , , produces a trefoil knot. During one circuit the meridional angle changes by and the longitudinal angle by . The supporting torus is a guide for construction, not a constraint on later ambient isotopies: the knot may move off it. This family makes arithmetic visible as geometry: the coprime integers determine whether a single traversal visits the whole loop without repetition.
The coprime integers hypothesis matters. If the greatest common divisor is , the same parametric curve retraces a single component times; it does not automatically draw different components. The corresponding torus link is instead the full set of points on the torus whose angles satisfy , with meridional angle and longitudinal angle . It has disjoint components, each with winding counts . For instance, the torus link consists of two parallel loops and is a Hopf link, whereas substituting into simply traces one of those loops twice.
