Link Floer homology, nonformality, and the Borromean rings

Abstract

Our main result is a computation of the full link Floer complex of the Borromean rings. The Borromean rings are well known to be an L-space link. We prove that the full link Floer complex is not a free-resolution of its homology, in contrast to the situation for L-space knots, plumbed L-space links, and two-component L-space links. We also describe the link involution of the Borromean rings, up to a minor ambiguity. The proof goes by way of studying some general techniques about $A_\infty$-deformations of L-space link Floer complexes. Our techniques give a simple criterion for when an L-space link must have formal link Floer complex, which reproves the existing formality results for one- and two-component L-space links.