Purely cosmetic surgeries and Casson--Walker--Lescop invariants

Abstract

Using the rational surgery formula for the Casson--Walker--Lescop invariant of links in the $3$-sphere, we show that any null-homologous knot in a rational homology sphere admits at most two pairs of integral purely cosmetic surgeries. We also present constraints for null-homologous knots in certain $3$-manifolds with the first Betti number one or two to admit purely cosmetic surgeries. As another application, we show that, for a null-homologous knot in some $3$-manifolds, including $S^2\times S^1$, there are at most two knots which are inequivalent to the given one, but whose exteriors are orientation-preservingly homeomorphic to that of the given one.

22 pages, 2 figures