On nonsimple knots in lens spaces with tunnel number one

Michael J. Williams

Published 2009-08-12Version 1

A knot k in a closed orientable 3-manifold is called nonsimple if the exterior of k possesses a properly embedded essential surface of nonnegative Euler characteristic. We show that if k is a nonsimple prime tunnel number one knot in a lens space M (where M does not contain any embedded Klein bottles), then k is a (1,1) knot. Elements of the proof include handle addition and Dehn filling results/techniques of Jaco, Eudave-Munoz and Gordon as well as structure results of Schultens on the Heegaard splittings of graph manifolds.