Montesinos–Morton branched-cover conjecture for fibered links

Let LL be a fibered link in S3S^3. A simple branched cover is a map π ⁣:S3S3\pi\colon S^3\to S^3 branched over a link LL', and α\alpha and β\beta are unknots that are braid axes of LL'. Montesinos–Morton's conjecture. For every fibered link LL, there is a simple branched cover

π ⁣:S3S3\pi\colon S^3\to S^3

branched over a link LL' and two unknots α\alpha and β\beta, which are braid axes of LL', such that π1(α)=L\pi^{-1}(\alpha)=L and π1(β)\pi^{-1}(\beta) is the unknot. Montesinos and Morton proved this for fibered links obtained from the unknot and its fiber disk by Hopf plumbings without deplumbings; the general assertion remains open.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Benjamin Bode and Chun-Sheng Hsueh, “Mutual arc presentations and braided open books”, arXiv:2511.21837 (2025).

Additional references

2 papers in this index state this conjecture (2021–2025). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2111.05187.

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