Periodic knots and Heegaard Floer correction terms

Abstract

We derive new obstructions to periodicity of classical knots by employing the Heegaard Floer correction terms of the finite cyclic branched covers of the knots. Applying our results to 2-fold covers, we demonstrate through numerous examples that our obstructions are successful where many existing periodicity obstructions fail.

A combination of previously known periodicity obstructions and the results presented here leads to a nearly complete (with the exception of a single knot) classification of alternating, periodic, 12-crossing knots with odd prime periods. For the case of alternating knots with 13, 14 and 15 crossings, we give a complete list of all periodic knots with odd prime periods $q>3$.