High distance Heegaard splittings via fat train tracks

We define fat train tracks and use them to give a combinatorial criterion for the Hempel distance of Heegaard splittings for closed orientable 3-manifolds. We apply this criterion to 3-manifolds obtained from surgery on knots in S³.     

Uniqueness of Walkup's 9-vertex 3-dimensional Klein bottle

Via a computer search, Altshuler and Steinberg found that there are 1296+1 combinatorial 3-manifolds on nine vertices, of which only one is non-sphere. This exceptional 3-manifold triangulates the twisted S²-bundle over S¹. It was first constructed by Walkup. In this paper, we present a computer-free proof of the uniqueness of this non-sphere combinatorial 3-manifold. As opposed to the computer-generated proof, ours does not require wading through all the 9-vertex 3-spheres. As a preliminary result, we also show that any 9-vertex combinatorial 3-manifold is equivalent by proper bistellar moves to a 9-vertex neighbourly 3-manifold.     

Splitting (complicated) surfaces is hard

Let be an orientable combinatorial surface. A cycle on is splitting if it has no self-intersections and it partitions into two components, neither of which is homeomorphic to a disk. In other words, splitting cycles are simple, separating, and non-contractible. We prove that finding the shortest splitting cycle on a combinatorial surface is NP-hard but fixed-parameter tractable with respect to the surface genus g and the number of boundary components b of the surface. Specifically, we describe an algorithm to compute the shortest splitting cycle in (g+b)^O(g+b)nlogn time, where n is the complexity of the combinatorial surface.     

Discrete quasi-Einstein metrics and combinatorial curvature flows in 3-dimension

Motivated by the definition of combinatorial scalar curvature given by Cooper and Rivin, we introduce a new combinatorial scalar curvature. Then we define the discrete quasi-Einstein metric, which is a combinatorial analogue of the constant scalar curvature metric in smooth case. We find that discrete quasi-Einstein metric is critical point of both the combinatorial Yamabe functional and the quadratic energy functional we defined on triangulated 3-manifolds. We introduce combinatorial curvature flows, including a new type of combinatorial Yamabe flow, to study the discrete quasi-Einstein metrics and prove that the flows produce solutions converging to discrete quasi-Einstein metrics if the initial normalized quadratic energy is small enough. As a corollary, we prove that nonsingular solution of the combinatorial Yamabe flow with nonpositive initial curvatures converges to discrete quasi-Einstein metric. The proof relies on a careful analysis of the discrete dual-Laplacian, which we interpret as the Jacobian matrix of curvature map.     

Computing Matveev’s Complexity via Crystallization Theory: The Orientable Case

By means of a slight modification of the notion of GM-complexity introduced in [Casali, M.R., Topol. Its Appl., 144: 201–209, 2004], the present paper performs a graph-theoretical approach to the computation of (Matveev’s) complexity for closed orientable 3-manifolds. In particular, the existing crystallization catalogue available in [Lins, S., Knots and Everything 5, World Scientific, Singapore, 1995] is used to obtain upper bounds for the complexity of closed orientable 3-manifolds triangulated by at most 28 tetrahedra. The experimental results actually coincide with the exact values of complexity, for all but three elements. Moreover, in the case of at most 26 tetrahedra, the exact value of the complexity is shown to be always directly computable via crystallization theory.     

Neighborly combinatorial 3-manifolds with dihedral automorphism group

It is well known that for anyn≧5 the boundary complex of the cyclic 4-polytopeC(n, 4) is a neighborly combinatorial 3-sphere admitting a vertex transitive action of the dihedral groupD _n of order 2n. In this paper we present a similar series of neighborly combinatorial 3-manifolds withn≧9 vertices, each homeomorphic to the “3-dimensional Klein bottle”. Forn=9 andn=10 these examples have been observed. before by A. Altshuler and L. Steinberg. Moreover we give a computer-aided enumeration of all neighborly combinatorial 3-manifolds with such a symmetry and with at most 19 vertices. It turns out that there are only four other types, one with 10, 15, 17, 19 vertices. We also discuss the more general case of manifolds with cyclic automorphism groupC _n.     

The Heegaard Genus of Amalgamated 3-Manifolds

Let M and M′ be simple 3-manifolds, each with connected boundary of genus at least two. Suppose that Mand M′ are glued via a homeomorphism between their boundaries. Then we show that, provided the gluing homeomorphism is ‘sufficiently complicated’, the Heegaard genus of the amalgamated manifold is completely determined by the Heegaard genus of Mand M′ and the genus of their common boundary. Here, a homeomorphism is ‘sufficiently complicated’ if it is the composition of a homeomorphism from the boundary ofM to some surface S, followed by a sufficiently high power of a pseudo-Anosov onS, followed by a homeomorphism to the boundary of M′. The proof uses the hyperbolic geometry of the amalgamated manifold, generalised Heegaard splittings and minimal surfaces.     

On the geometry and trigonometry of homogeneous 3-manifolds with 4-dimensional isometry group

In this article we study the geometry of the family of simply connected homogeneous 3-manifolds (M, g _K,τ ) given as a principal bundle over a 2-manifold of constant curvature such that the curvature form is constant. We give explicit results for the conjugate radius, normal Jacobi fields and the cut locus on (M, g _K,τ ). Moreover, we determine the trigonometry on (M, g _K,τ ) by a complete set of trigonometric laws. The author would like to thank Uwe Abresch for his advice.     

Variational Splines and Paley–Wiener Spaces on Combinatorial Graphs

Notions of interpolating variational splines and Paley–Wiener spaces are introduced on a combinatorial graph G. Both of these definitions explore existence of a combinatorial Laplace operator on G. The existence and uniqueness of interpolating variational splines on a graph is shown. As an application of variational splines, the paper presents a reconstruction algorithm of Paley–Wiener functions on graphs from their uniqueness sets.      

Global rigidity of holomorphic Riemannian metrics on compact complex 3-manifolds

We study compact complex 3-manifolds M admitting a (locally homogeneous) holomorphic Riemannian metric g. We prove the following: (i) If the Killing Lie algebra of g has a non trivial semi-simple part, then it preserves some holomorphic Riemannian metric on M with constant sectional curvature; (ii) If the Killing Lie algebra of g is solvable, then, up to a finite unramified cover, M is a quotient Γ\G, where Γ is a lattice in G and G is either the complex Heisenberg group, or the complex SOL group. S. Dumitrescu was partially supported by the ANR Grant BLAN 06-3-137237.     

Extremal Metrics for Quadratic Functional of Scalar Curvature on Closed 3-Manifolds

In this paper, we first show the global existence of the three-dimensionalCalabi flow on any closed 3-manifold with an arbitrary background metric g ₀. Second, we show the asymptotic convergence of a subsequence ofsolutions of the Calabi flow on a closed 3-manifold with Yamabe constant Q < 0 or Q = 0 and Q > 0, up to conformal transformations. With itsapplication, we prove the existence of extremal metrics for quadraticfunctional of scalar curvature on a closed 3-manifold which is served asan extension of the Yamabe problem on closed manifolds. Moreover, theexistence of extremal metrics on complete noncompact 3-manifolds willdiscuss elsewhere.     

On(e)-reducible 3-manifolds Which Admit Complete Surface Systems

In the present paper, we consider a class of compact orientable 3-manifolds with one boundary component, and suppose that the manifolds are ?-reducible and admit complete surface systems. One of our main results says that for a compact orientable, irreducible and ?-reducible 3-manifold M with one boundary component F of genus n > 0 which admits a complete surface system S′, if D is a collection of pairwise disjoint compression disks for ?M , then there exists a complete surface system S for M , which is equivalent to S′, such that D is disjoint from S . We also obtain some properties of such 3-manifolds which can be embedded in S3.     

Polyhedral 2-manifolds inE 3 with unusually large genus

An equivelar polyhedral 2-manifold in the class ?_p,q is one embedded inE ³ in which every face is a convexp-gon and every vertex isq-valent. In this paper, examples are constructed, to show that each of the classes ?_3,q (q≧7), ?_4,q (q≧5) and ?_p,4 (p≧5) contains infinitely many distinct combinatorial types. As particular examples, there are polyhedral 2-manifolds with 576 vertices and genus 577, and with 4096 faces and genus 4097. A modification of one construction shows that there is a constantk, such that for eachg≧2, there exists a closed polyhedral 2-manifold inE ³ of genusg with at mostkg/logg vertices.     

A New Lower Bound Theorem for Combinatorial 2k-Manifolds

We prove a centrally-symmetric analogue of the generalized Heawood inequality, i.e. we prove a Lower Bound Theorem for combinatorial 2k-manifolds M whose convex hull is a centrally-symmetric simplicial polytope P under the additional assumptions that M is a subcomplex of the boundary complex of P and that M contains the k-skeleton of P. We also deduce a relation for the minimum number of vertices of a combinatorial 2k-manifold satisfying our Lower Bound. Received June 12, 1996 Revised June 9, 1997     

Three-manifolds with Heegaard genus at most two represented by crystallisations with at most 42 vertices

It is known that every closed compact orientable 3-manifold M can be represented by a 4-edge-coloured 4-valent graph called a crystallisation of M. Casali and Grasselli proved that 3-manifolds of Heegaard genus g can be represented by crystallisations with a very simple structure which can be described by a 2(g+1)-tuple of non-negative integers. The sum of first g+1 integers is called complexity of the admissible 2(g+1)-tuple. If c is the complexity then the number of vertices of the associated graph is 2c. In the present paper we describe all prime 3-manifolds of Heegaard genus two described by 6-tuples of complexity at most 21.     

On the Heegaard Floer homology of a surface times a circle

We make a detailed study of the Heegaard Floer homology of the product of a closed surface Σg of genus g with S¹. We determine HF⁺(Σg×S¹,s;C) completely in the case c₁(s)=0, which for g?3 was previously unknown. We show that in this case HF^∞ is closely related to the cohomology of the total space of a certain circle bundle over the Jacobian torus of Σg, and furthermore that HF⁺(Σg×S¹,s;Z) contains nontrivial 2-torsion whenever g?3 and c₁(s)=0. This is the first example known to the authors of torsion in Z-coefficient Heegaard Floer homology. Our methods also give new information on the action of H₁(Σg×S¹) on HF⁺(Σg×S¹,s) when c₁(s) is nonzero.     

A formula on Heegaard genus of self-amalgamated 3-manifolds

Let M be an orientable compact irreducible and ∂-irreducible 3-manifold, and suppose ∂M consists of two boundary components F₁ and F₂ with g(F₁)=g(F₂)>1. Let Mf be the closed orientable 3-manifold obtained by identifying F₁ and F₂ via a homeomorphism f:F₁→F₂. With the assumption that M is small or g(M,F₁)=g(M)+g(F₁), we show that if f is sufficiently complicated, then g(Mf)=g(M,∂M)+1.     

Heegaard Genus Formula for Haken Manifolds

Suppose M is a compact orientable 3-manifold and a properly embedded orientable boundary incompressible essential surface. Denote the completions of the components of M – Q with respect to the path metric by M ¹, ...,M ^k . Denote the smallest possible genus of a Heegaard splitting of M, or M ^j respectively, for which ∂M, or ∂M ^j respectively, is contained in one compression body by g(M, ∂M), or g(M ^j , ∂M ^j ) respectively. Denote the maximal number of non-parallel essential annuli that can be simultaneously embedded in M ^j by n _j . Then

Asymptotically cylindrical 7-manifolds of holonomy <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis><Subscript>2</Subscript> with applications to compact irreducible <Emphasis Type="Italic">G</Emphasis><Subscript>2</Subscript>-manifolds

We construct examples of exponentially asymptotically cylindrical (EAC) Riemannian 7-manifolds with holonomy group equal to G ₂. To our knowledge, these are the first such examples. We also obtain EAC coassociative calibrated submanifolds. Finally, we apply our results to show that one of the compact G ₂-manifolds constructed by Joyce by desingularisation of a flat orbifold T ⁷/Γ can be deformed to give one of the compact G ₂-manifolds obtainable as a generalized connected sum of two EAC SU(3)-manifolds via the method of Kovalev (J Reine Angew Math 565:125–160, 2003).