The at-most-two-slopes conjecture for alternating surgeries

Let KKnotin D\mathcal{D} be a knot admitting positive alternating surgeries. Write Salt(K)\mathcal{S}_{\rm alt}(K) for the set of alternating surgery slopes, and let NN denote the relevant integer parameter. At-most-two-slopes conjecture.

Salt(K){N1,N}.\mathcal{S}_{\rm alt}(K)\subseteq \{N-1,N\}.

In particular, the only knots with non-integral alternating surgeries are in D\mathcal{D}. The theorem cited in the source verifies this for knots whose Alexander polynomials obstruct them from lying in D\mathcal{D}; the remaining case concerns knots outside D\mathcal{D} sharing their Alexander polynomial with a knot in D\mathcal{D}, and remains open.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Kenneth L. Baker, Marc Kegel and Duncan McCoy, “The search for alternating surgeries”, arXiv:2409.09842 (2026).

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