Almost alternating diagrams and fibered links in S^3

Abstract

Let $L$ be an oriented link with an alternating diagram $D$. It is known that $L$ is a fibered link if and only if the surface $R$ obtained by applying Seifert's algorithm to $D$ is a Hopf plumbing. Here, we call $R$ a Hopf plumbing if $R$ is obtained by successively plumbing finite number of Hopf bands to a disk. In this paper, we discuss its extension so that we show the following theorem. Let $R$ be a Seifert surface obtained by applying Seifert's algorithm to an almost alternating diagrams. Then $R$ is a fiber surface if and only if $R$ is a Hopf plumbing. We also show that the above theorem can not be extended to 2-almost alternating diagrams, that is, we give examples of 2-almost alternating diagrams for knots whose Seifert surface obtained by Seifert's algorithm are fiber surfaces that are not Hopf plumbing. This is shown by using a criterion of Melvin-Morton.