Profinite rigidity, fibering, and the figure-eight knot

Abstract

We establish results concerning the profinite completions of 3-manifold groups. In particular, we prove that the complement of the figure-eight knot $S^3-K$ is distinguished from all other compact 3-manifolds by the set of finite quotients of its fundamental group. In addition, we show that if $M$ is a compact 3-manifold with $b_1(M)=1$, and $\pi_1(M)$ has the same finite quotients as a free-by-cyclic group $F_r\rtimes\mathbb{Z}$, then $M$ has non-empty boundary, fibres over the circle with compact fibre, and $\pi_1(M)\cong F_r\rtimes_\psi\mathbb{Z}$ for some $\psi\in{\rm{Out}}(F_r)$.