Random methods in 3-manifold theory

The surface map arising from a random walk on the mapping class group may be used as the gluing map for a Heegaard splitting, and the resulting 3-manifold is known as a random Heegaard splitting. We show that the splitting distance of random Heegaard splittings grows linearly in the length of the random walk, with an exponential decay estimate for the proportion with slower growth. We use this to obtain the limiting distribution of Casson invariants of random Heegaard splittings.     

Margulis numbers for Haken manifolds

For every closed orientable hyperbolic Haken 3-manifold and, more generally, for any orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold M which is homeomorphic to the interior of a Haken manifold, the number 0.286 is a Margulis number. If H ₁(M;ℚ) ≠ 0, or if M is closed and contains a semi-fiber, then 0.292 is a Margulis number for M.     

Heegaard Gradient of Seifert Fibered 3-Manifolds

The infimal Heegaard gradient of a 3-manifold was defined andstudied by Marc Lackenby in an approach towards proving thewell-known virtually Haken conjecture. As instructive examples,Seifert fibered 3-manifolds are considered in this paper. Theauthor shows that a compact orientable Seifert fibered 3-manifoldhas zero infimal Heegaard gradient if and only if it virtuallyfibers over either the circle or a surface other than the 2-sphereor, equivalently, if it has infinite fundamental group. 2000Mathematics Subject Classification 57M10 (primary), 57N10, 57M50(secondary).     

The topological structure of 3-pseudomanifolds

A 3-pseudomanifold (briefly 3-pm) is a finite connected simplicial 3-complex in which the link of every vertex is a closed 2-manifold. Such a link issingular if it is not a sphere. It is proved that for a preassigned list Σ of closed 2-manifolds (other than spheres), there is a 3-pm in which the list of singular links is precisely Σ, iff the number of the non-orientable members in Σ with odd genus is even. Close relationship is found between 3-pms and 3-manifolds with boundary. This yields a simple proof for the 2-dimensional case of Pontrjagin-Thom’s theorem (i.e., necessary and sufficient condition for a 2-manifold to bound a 3-manifold). The concept of a 3-pm is generalized to higher dimensions.     

Peripheral fillings of relatively hyperbolic groups

In this paper a group theoretic version of Dehn surgery is studied. Starting with an arbitrary relatively hyperbolic group G we define a peripheral filling procedure, which produces quotients of G by imitating the effect of the Dehn filling of a complete finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold M on the fundamental group π₁(M). The main result of the paper is an algebraic counterpart of Thurston’s hyperbolic Dehn surgery theorem. We also show that peripheral subgroups of G ‘almost’ have the Congruence Extension Property and the group G is approximated (in an algebraic sense) by its quotients obtained by peripheral fillings. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000) 20F65, 20F67, 20F06, 57M27, 20E26     

Bilateral self-amalgamation of a Heegaard splitting and Hempel distance

A closed orientable Haken 3-manifold containing a non separating incompressible closed surface has two canonical Heegaard splittings, which are called self-amalgamation and bilateral self-amalgamation.Heegaard distance introduced by Hempel is a useful index in studying Heegaard splitting. This paper studies the stabilization problem for the bilateral self-amalgamation, and proves that if the distance of bilateral selfamalgamation of a Heegaard splitting is at least 9, then it is unstabilized, weakly reducible and irreducible.     

An -module structure of the cokernel of the second Johnson homomorphism

The Johnson homomorphisms τ_k (k1) give Abelian quotients of a series of certain subgroups of the mapping class group of a surface. Morita determined the rational image of the second Johnson homomorphism τ₂. In this paper, we study the structure of the torsion part of the cokernel of τ₂. First, we determine the rank of the cokernel over . Although we do it first by computing explicitly, later we improve the proof, using the Birman–Craggs homomorphism, obtained by the classical Rohlin invariant of homology 3-spheres. Since τ₂ is equivariant with respect to the action of the mapping class group, Im τ₂ is -invariant and hence acts on the cokernel. Moreover, computing this action explicitly, we show that the action reduces to that of the finite symplectic group .     

Big Heegaard distance implies finite mapping class group

We show that if M is a closed three manifold with a Heegaard splitting with sufficiently big Heegaard distance then the subgroup of the mapping class group of the Heegaard surface, whose elements extend to both handlebodies is finite. As a corollary, this implies that under the same hypothesis, the mapping class group of M is finite.     

An algorithm for finding planar surfaces in three-manifolds

By a slope in the boundary ∂M of a 3-manifold, we mean the isotopy class α of a finite set of disjoint simple closed curves in ∂M that are nontrivial and pairwise nonparallel. In this paper, we construct an algorithm to decide whether or not a given orientable 3-manifold M contains an essential planar surface whose boundary has a given slope α. __________ Translated from Fundamentalnaya i Prikladnaya Matematika, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 197–202, 2005.     

Covering homotopy 3-spheres

We prove the following theorem: for any closed orientable 3-manifoldM and any homotopy 3-sphere Σ, there exists a simple 3-fold branched coveringp:M→Σ. We also propose the conjecture that, for any primitive branched coveringp:M→N between orientable 3-manifolds,g(M)≥g(N), whereg denotes the Heegaard genus. By the above mentioned result, the genus 0 case of such conjecture is equivalent to the Poincaré conjecture.     

Length Bounds on Curves Arising from Tight Geodesics

Let M be a complete hyperbolic 3-manifold admitting a homotopy equivalence to a compact surface ∑, such that the cusps of M are in bijective correspondence with the boundary components of ∑. Suppose we realise a tight geodesic in the curve complex as a sequence of closed geodesics M. There is an upper bound on the lengths of such curves in terms of the lengths of the terminal curves and the topologicial type of ∑. We give proofs of these and related bounds. Similar bounds have been proven by Minsky using the sophisticated machinery of hierarchies. Such bounds feature in the work of Brock, Canary and Minsky towards the ending lamination conjecture, and can also be used to study the action of the mapping class group on the curve complex. Received: January 2006, Revision: March 2007, Accepted: July 2007     

Enumerating finite groups without abelian composition factors

Let Σ denote the class of allnon-abelian finite simple groups. We are concerned with enumerating poly-Σ groups, that is finite groups without abelian composition factors. For any natural numbern let gΣ(n) denote the number of (isomorphism classes of) poly-Σ groups of order at mostn. We determine the growth rate of the sequence gΣ(n),n ε ℵ. Similarly, for anyS ε Σ we give estimates for the numbers ĝS(k) of poly-S groups of composition length at mostk, ask tends to infinity. This initiates an investigation somewhat complementary to the “classical” enumeration of finitep-groups by Higman [6] and Sims [15]. Our ancillary results include upper bounds for the minimal number of generators and for the number of (equivalence classes of) permutation actions of any given poly-Σ group.     

Adjacency in subposets of the lattice of T 1-topologies on a set

Summary We study subposets of the lattice L_₁(X) of all T1-topologies on a set X, namely Σ_t(X), Σ₃(X) and Σ_lc(X), being respectively the collections of all Tychonoff, all T₃ and all locally compact Hausdorff topologies on X, with a view to deciding which elements of these partially ordered sets have and which do not have covers, that is to say immediate successors, in the respective posets. In the final section we discuss the subposet Σ _G of all Hausdorff group topologies on a group G.     

On transformations of special spines and special polyhedra

Special spines of 3-manifolds and special polyhedra are examined. Special transformations of spines and polyhedra are considered. Two triangulations of the same 3-manifold are known to have a common stellar subdivision, and two Heegaard splittings of the same 3-manifold are stably equivalent. We prove similar assertions for spines and polyhedra. Spines with the structure of a branched surface are studied. Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 65, No. 3, pp. 354–361, March, 1999.     

Heegaard surfaces and measured laminations, II: Non-Haken 3-manifolds

A famous example of Casson and Gordon shows that a Haken 3-manifold can have an infinite family of irreducible Heegaard splittings with different genera. In this paper, we prove that a closed non-Haken 3-manifold has only finitely many irreducible Heegaard splittings, up to isotopy. This is much stronger than the generalized Waldhausen conjecture. Another immediate corollary is that for any irreducible non-Haken 3-manifold , there is a number such that any two Heegaard splittings of are equivalent after at most stabilizations.

     

3-manifolds which are orbit spaces of diffeomorphisms

In a very general setting, we show that a 3-manifold obtained as the orbit space of the basin of a topological attractor is either S²×S¹ or irreducible.We then study in more detail the topology of a class of 3-manifolds which are also orbit spaces and arise as invariants of gradient-like diffeomorphisms (in dimension 3). Up to a finite number of exceptions, which we explicitly describe, all these manifolds are Haken and, by changing the diffeomorphism by a finite power, all the Seifert components of the Jaco-Shalen-Johannson decomposition of these manifolds are made into product circle bundles.     

Critical Heegaard surfaces

In this paper we introduce critical surfaces, which are described via a 1-complex whose definition is reminiscent of the curve complex. Our main result is that if the minimal genus common stabilization of a pair of strongly irreducible Heegaard splittings of a 3-manifold is not critical, then the manifold contains an incompressible surface. Conversely, we also show that if a non-Haken 3-manifold admits at most one Heegaard splitting of each genus, then it does not contain a critical Heegaard surface. In the final section we discuss how this work leads to a natural metric on the space of strongly irreducible Heegaard splittings, as well as many new and interesting open questions.     

Quasi-isometries preserve the geometric decomposition of Haken manifolds

We prove quasi-isometry invariance of the canonical decomposition for fundamental groups of Haken 3-manifolds with zero Euler characteristic. We show that groups quasi-isometric to Haken manifold groups with nontrivial canonical decomposition are finite extensions of Haken orbifold groups. As a by-product we describe all 2-dimensional quasi-flats in the universal covers of non-geometric Haken manifolds. Oblatum 27-III-1996 & 5-IX-1996     

High distance Heegaard splittings of 3-manifolds

J. Hempel [J. Hempel, 3-manifolds as viewed from the curve complex, Topology 40 (3) (2001) 631-657] used the curve complex associated to the Heegaard surface of a splitting of a 3-manifold to study its complexity. He introduced the distance of a Heegaard splitting as the distance between two subsets of the curve complex associated to the handlebodies. Inspired by a construction of T. Kobayashi [T. Kobayashi, Casson-Gordon's rectangle condition of Heegaard diagrams and incompressible tori in 3-manifolds, Osaka J. Math. 25 (3) (1988) 553-573], J. Hempel [J. Hempel, 3-manifolds as viewed from the curve complex, Topology 40 (3) (2001) 631-657] proved the existence of arbitrarily high distance Heegaard splittings.In this work we explicitly define an infinite sequence of 3-manifolds {Mn} via their representative Heegaard diagrams by iterating a 2-fold Dehn twist operator. Using purely combinatorial techniques we are able to prove that the distance of the Heegaard splitting of Mn is at least n.Moreover, we show that π₁(Mn) surjects onto π₁(Mn−1). Hence, if we assume that M⁰ has nontrivial boundary then it follows that the first Betti number β₁(Mn)>0 for all n?1. Therefore, the sequence {Mn} consists of Haken 3-manifolds for n?1 and hyperbolizable 3-manifolds for n?3.     

An alternative proof of Lickorish–Wallace theorem

We introduce the concept of s-distance of an unstabilized Heegaard splitting. We prove if a 3-manifold admits an unstabilized genus g Heegaard splitting with s-distance m  , then surgery on some (m−1)$(m-1)$ components link may produce a 3-manifold which admits a stabilized genus g Heegaard splitting. We also give an alternative proof of the fundamental theorem of surgery theory, which states that every closed orientable 3-manifold is obtained by surgery on some link in 3-sphere.