Orders and actions of branched coverings of hyperbolic links

Let M, M^′ be compact oriented 3-manifolds and L^′ a link in M^′ whose exterior has positive Gromov norm. We prove that the topological types of M and (M^′,L^′) determine the degree of a strongly cyclic covering branched over L^′. Moreover, if M^′ is a homology sphere then these topological types determine also the covering up to conjugacy.     

Classification Of Locally 2-Connected Compact Metric Spaces

The aim of this paper is to prove that, for compact metric spaces which do not contain infinite complete graphs, the (strong) property of being locally 2-dimensional is guaranteed just by a (weak) local connectivity condition. Specifically, we prove that a locally 2-connected, compact metric space M either contains an infinite complete graph or is surface like in the following sense: There exists a unique surface S such that S and M contain the same finite graphs. Moreover, M is embeddable in S, that is, M is homeomorphic to a subset of S.     

The amalgamation of high distance Heegaard splittings is always efficient

Let M be a compact orientable manifold, and F be an essential closed surface which cuts M into two 3-manifolds M ₁ and M ₂. Let be a Heegaard splitting for i = 1, 2. We denote by d(S _i ) the distance of . If d(S ₁), d(S ₂) ≥ 2(g(M ₁) + g(M ₂) − g(F)), then M has a unique minimal Heegaard splitting up to isotopy, i.e. the amalgamation of and . Ruifeng Qiu is supported by NSFC(10625102).     

Cyclic actions on some Klein bottle bundles over S1

Leth be a cyclic action of periodn onM, whereM is eitherS ¹×K, K is the Klein bottle or on , the twisted Klein bottle bundle overS ¹, such that there is a fiberingq:MS ¹ with fiber a Klein bottleK or a torusT with respect to which the action is fiber preserving. We classify all such actions and show that they might be distinguished by their fixed points or by their orbit spaces.     

On the vertex group of n-manifolds

In this paper we obtain the decomposition of the vertex group of n-manifolds, extending the one given by Kauffman and Lins for dimension 3 and solving the related conjecture. The result is obtained in the more general category of gems: the vertex group of a gem , representing an n-manifold M, is the free product of n copies of the fundamental group of M and a free group F of rank N–n, where N is the number of n-residues of . In particular, for crystallizations FZ and consequently the vertex group is an invariant of M.     

Circle bundles over 4-manifolds

Every 1-connected topological 4-manifold M admits a S¹-covering by # _{r − 1} S² × S³, where Received: 4 July 2004     

Pre-Bloch invariants of 3-manifolds with boundary

Let M be an oriented hyperbolic 3-manifold with finite volume. In [W.D. Neumann, J. Yang, Bloch invariants of hyperbolic 3-manifolds, Duke Math. J. 96 (1999) 29-59. [9]], Neumann and Yang defined an element β(M) of Bloch group B(C) for M. For this β(M), volume and Chern-Simons invariant of M is represented by a transcendental function. In this paper, we define β(M,ρ,C,o)∈P(C) for an oriented 3-manifold M with boundary, a representation of its fundamental group , a pants decomposition C of ∂M and an orientation o on simple closed curves of C. Unlike in the case of finite volume, we construct an element of pre-Bloch group P(C), and we need essentially the pants decomposition on the boundary. The volume makes sense for β(M,ρ,C,o) and we can describe the variation of volume on the deformation space.     

Surgery on the Novikov complex

Let M be a closed connected smooth manifold with dim M=n6, and : ₁(M) Z be an epimorphism. Denote by the group ring of ₁(M) and let ^– be its Novikov completion. Let D _* be a free-based finitely generated chain complex over ^– . Assume that D _ii=0 for i1 and in–1 and that D _* has the same simple homotopy type as the Novikov-completed simplicial chain complex of the universal covering M. Let N be an integer. We prove that D _* can be realized, up to the terms of ^– of degree N as the Novikov complex of a Morse map : M S ¹, belonging to . Applications to Arnold's conjectures and to the theory of fibering of M over S ¹ are given.     

Geometric Realization of a Triangulation on the Projective Plane with One Face Removed

Let M be a map on a surface F ². A geometric realization of M is an embedding of F ² into a Euclidean 3-space ?³ such that each face of M is a flat polygon. We shall prove that every triangulation G on the projective plane has a face f such that the triangulation of the Möbius band obtained from G by removing the interior of f has a geometric realization.     

Note on a Theorem of Munkres

We prove that given a Riemannian manifold with boundary, having a finite number of compact boundary components, any fat triangulation of the boundary can be extended to the whole manifold. We also show that this result extends to manifolds and to embedded PL manifolds of dimensions 2, 3 and 4. We employ these results to prove that manifolds of the types above admit quasimeromorphic mappings onto As an application we prove the existence of G-automorphic quasimeromorphic mappings, where G is a Kleinian group acting on Dedicated to the memory of Robert BrooksThis paper represents part of the authors Ph.D. thesis written under the supervision of Prof. Uri Srebro.     

A non-commutative formula for the colored Jones function

The colored Jones function of a knot is a sequence of Laurent polynomials that encodes the Jones polynomial of a knot and its parallels. It has been understood in terms of representations of quantum groups and Witten gave an intrinsic quantum field theory interpretation of the colored Jones function as the expectation value of Wilson loops of a 3-dimensional gauge theory, the Chern–Simons theory. We present the colored Jones function as an evaluation of the inverse of a non-commutative fermionic partition function. This result is in the form familiar in quantum field theory, namely the inverse of a generalized determinant. Our formula also reveals a direct relation between the Alexander polynomial and the colored Jones function of a knot and immediately implies the extensively studied Melvin–Morton–Rozansky conjecture, first proved by Bar–Natan and the first author about 10 years ago. Our results complement recent work of Huynh and Le, who also give a non-commutative formulae for the colored Jones function of a knot, starting from a non-commutative formula for the R matrix of the quantum group ; see Huynh and Le (in math.GT/0503296).     

Rohlin’s invariant and gauge theory,I. Homology 3-tori

This is the first in a series of papers exploring the relationship between the Rohlin invariant and gauge theory. We discuss a Casson-type invariant of a 3-manifold Y with the integral homology of the 3-torus, given by counting projectively flat U(2)-connections. We show that its mod 2 evaluation is given by the triple cup product in cohomology, and so it coincides with a certain sum of Rohlin invariants of Y. Our counting argument makes use of a natural action of H ¹ (Y;₂) on the moduli space of projectively flat connections; along the way we construct perturbations that are equivariant with respect to this action. Combined with the Floer exact triangle, this gives a purely gauge-theoretic proof that Cassons homology sphere invariant reduces mod 2 to the Rohlin invariant.     

Tits alternative for 3-manifold groups

Let M be an irreducible, orientable, closed 3-manifold with fundamental group G. We show that if the pro-p completion of G is infinite then G is either soluble-by-finite or contains a free subgroup of rank 2. Both authors are partially supported by “Bolsa de produtividade de pesquisa” from CNPq, Brazil. Received: 16 February 2006     

Dimensions of fixed point sets of involutions

Suppose the fixed point set F of a smooth involution T:M → M on a smooth, closed and connected manifold M decomposes into two components Fⁿ and F² of dimensions n and 2, respectively, with n > 2 odd. We show that the codimension k of Fⁿ is small if the normal bundle of F² does not bound; specifically, we show that k≦ 3 in this case. In the more general situation where F is not a boundary, n (not necessarily odd) is the dimension of a component of F of maximal dimension and k is the codimension of this component, and fixed components of all dimensions j, 0≦ j≦ n, may occur, a theorem of Boardman gives that . In addition, we show that this bound can be improved to k≦ 1 (hence k = 1) for some specific values of n and some fixed stable cobordism classes of the normal bundle of F² in M; further, we determine in these cases the equivariant cobordism class of (M, T). Received: 25 August 2005     

Existence of least area planes in hyperbolic 3-space with co-compact metric

Let r be a metric on the hyperbolic 3-space induced from an arbitrary Riemannian metric on a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold. In this paper, we will show that any smooth simple loop in S_∞² spans a properly embedded r-least area plane in . This solves Gabai's conjecture ((J. Amer. Math. Soc. 10 (1997) 37), Conjecture 3.12), affirmatively.     

Hausdorff dimension and dendritic limit sets

Let be a singly degenerate closed surface group acting properly discontinuously on hyperbolic 3-space, H³, such that H³/ has positive injectivity radius. It is known that the limit set is a dendrite of Hausdorff dimension 2. We show that the cut-point set of the limit set has Hausdorff dimension strictly less than 2.     

Metrics with finite sets of primitive extensions

In this paper, we give a complete characterization for the class of rational finite metrics with the property that the set () of primitive extensions of is finite. Here, for a metric on a setT, a positive extensionm of to a setV T is calledprimitive if none of the convex combinations of other extensions of toV is less than or equal tom. Our main theorem asserts that the following the properties are equivalent: (i) () is finite; (ii) Up to an integer factor, is a submetric of the path metric d ^H of a graphH with |(d ^H )=1; (iii) A certain bipartite graph associated with contains neither isometrick-cycles withk6 nor induced subgraphsK _3,3 ^– . We then show that () is finite if and only if the dimension of the tight span of is at most two. We also present other results, discuss applications to multicommodity flows, and raise open problems.This research was supported by grant 97-01-00115 from the Russian Foundation of Basic Research and a grant from the Sonderforschungsbereich 343, Bielefeld Universität, Bielefeld, Germany.