Dehn surgery and essential annuli

Abstract

In this paper we consider Dehn surgery and essential annuli whose two boundary components are in distinct components of the boundary of a 3-manifold.Let Nl be an orientable 3-manifold with boundary, Kl a knot in Nl, and N2 the 3-manifold obtained by performing γ-Dehn surgery Kl. In detail, let Vl be a regular neighbourhood Kl, X = Nl − int Vl the exterior of Kl, T the toral component ∂Vl of ∂X, and γ a slope on T. Then we obtain the 3-manifold N2 by attaching a solid torus V2 to X so that γ bounds a disc in V2. Let K2 be the core of V2. Let π be the slope of a meridian loop of Kl, and Δ the distance between the slopes π and γ, i.e. the minimal number of intersection points of the two slopes on T. Suppose for i = 1 and 2 that Ni contains a proper annulus Ai such that the two components of ∂Ai are essential loops on distinct incompressible components of ∂Ni. Then note that Ai is essential, i.e. incompressible and ∂-incompressible in Ni.