Modular knots, automorphic forms, and the Rademacher symbols for triangle groups

Abstract

\'{E}.\~Ghys proved that the linking numbers of modular knots and the "missing" trefoil $K_{2,3}$ in $S^3$ coincide with the values of a highly ubiquitous function called the Rademacher symbol for ${\rm SL}_2\mathbb{Z}$. In this paper, we replace ${\rm SL}_2\mathbb{Z}=\Gamma_{2,3}$ by the triangle group $\Gamma_{p,q}$ for any coprime pair $(p,q)$ of integers with $2\leq p<q$. We invoke the theory of harmonic Maass forms for $\Gamma_{p,q}$ to introduce the notion of the Rademacher symbol $\psi_{p,q}$, and provide several characterizations. Among other things, we generalize Ghys's theorem for modular knots around any "missing" torus knot $K_{p,q}$ in $S^3$ and in a lens space.