Exceptional Dehn fillings on hyperbolic 3-manifolds with at least two boundary components

We estimate the number of exceptional slopes for hyperbolic 3-manifolds with a torus boundary component and at least one other boundary component.     

Incompressible surfaces in handlebodies and isotopies

It is shown that every properly embedded incompressible surface in a handlebody can be constructed by a canonical gluing process. A simple condition is given which asserts that the result of the gluing process is an incompressible surface. A new notion of isotopy is introduced in order to distinguish surfaces belonging to distinct isotopy classes. Several examples (known and new) are constructed.     

Dehn surgery on the figure 8 knot: Immersed surfaces

It is known that about 70% of surgeries on the figure 8 knot give manifolds which contain immersed incompressible surfaces. We improve this to about 80% by giving a very simple proof that all even surgeries give manifolds containing such a surface. Moreover, we give a quick proof that every surgery is virtually Haken, thereby partially dealing with some exceptional cases in Baker's results.

     

Incompressible surfaces in handlebodies and boundary reducible 3-manifolds

We study the existence of incompressible embeddings of surfaces into the genus two handlebody. We show that for every compact surface with boundary, orientable or not, there is an incompressible embedding of the surface into the genus two handlebody. In the orientable case the embedding can be either separating or non-separating. We also consider the case in which the genus two handlebody is replaced by an orientable 3-manifold with a compressible boundary component of genus greater than or equal to two.     

Non-orientable fundamental surfaces in lens spaces

We give a concrete example of an infinite sequence of (pn,qn)-lens spaces L(pn,qn) with natural triangulations T(pn,qn) with pn tetrahedra such that L(pn,qn) contains a certain non-orientable closed surface which is fundamental with respect to T(pn,qn) and of minimal crosscap number among all closed non-orientable surfaces in L(pn,qn) and has n−2 parallel sheets of normal disks of a quadrilateral type disjoint from the pair of core circles of L(pn,qn). Actually, we can set p₀=0, q₀=1, pk+1=3pk+2qk and qk+1=pk+qk.     

Incompressibility and least-area surfaces

We show that if F is a smooth, closed, orientable surface embedded in a closed, orientable 3-manifold M such that for each Riemannian metric g on M, F   is isotopic to a least-area surface F(g)$F(g)$, then F is incompressible.     

Hyperbolicity of arborescent tangles and arborescent links

In this paper, we study the hyperbolicity of arborescent tangles and arborescent links. We will explicitly determine all essential surfaces in arborescent tangle complements with non-negative Euler characteristic, and show that given an arborescent tangle T, the complement X(T) is non-hyperbolic if and only if T is a rational tangle, T=Qm*T^′ for some m?1, or T contains Qn for some n?2. We use these results to prove a theorem of Bonahon and Siebenmann which says that a large arborescent link L is non-hyperbolic if and only if it contains Q₂.     

Classifying foliations of 3-manifolds via branched surfaces

We use branched surfaces to define an equivalence relation on C¹ codimension one foliations of any closed orientable 3-manifold that are transverse to some fixed nonsingular flow. There is a discrete metric on the set of equivalence classes with the property that foliations that are sufficiently close (up to equivalence) share important topological properties.     

The loop expansion of the Kontsevich integral, the null-move and S-equivalence

The Kontsevich integral of a knot is a graph-valued invariant which (when graded by the Vassiliev degree of graphs) is characterized by a universal property; namely it is a universal Vassiliev invariant of knots. We introduce a second grading of the Kontsevich integral, the Euler degree, and a geometric null-move on the set of knots. We explain the relation of the null-move to S-equivalence, and the relation to the Euler grading of the Kontsevich integral. The null-move leads in a natural way to the introduction of trivalent graphs with beads, and to a conjecture on a rational version of the Kontsevich integral, formulated by the second author and proven in Geom. Top 8 (2004) 115 (see also Kricker, preprint 2000, math/GT.0005284).     

On some classes of hyperbolic knots with the 3-sphere surgery

For the distance of (1,1)-splittings of a knot in a closed orientable 3-manifold, it is an important problem whether a (1,1)-knot can admit (1,1)-splittings of different distances. In this paper, we give one-parameter families of hyperbolic (1,1)-knots such that each (1,1)-knot admits a Dehn surgery yielding the 3-sphere. It is remarkable that such knots are the first concrete examples each of whose (1,1)-splittings is of distance three.     

Finite type invariants of cyclic branched covers

Given a knot in an integer homology sphere, one can construct a family of closed 3-manifolds (parameterized by the positive integers), namely the cyclic branched coverings of the knot. In this paper, we give a formula for the Casson-Walker invariants of these 3-manifolds in terms of residues of a rational function (which measures the 2-loop part of the Kontsevich integral of a knot) and the signature function of the knot. Our main result actually computes the LMO invariant of cyclic branched covers in terms of a rational invariant of the knot and its signature function.     

The Thurston norm, fibered manifolds and twisted Alexander polynomials

Every element in the first cohomology group of a 3-manifold is dual to embedded surfaces. The Thurston norm measures the minimal ‘complexity’ of such surfaces. For instance the Thurston norm of a knot complement determines the genus of the knot in the 3-sphere. We show that the degrees of twisted Alexander polynomials give lower bounds on the Thurston norm, generalizing work of McMullen and Turaev. Our bounds attain their most concise form when interpreted as the degrees of the Reidemeister torsion of a certain twisted chain complex. We show that these lower bounds give the correct genus bounds for all knots with 12 crossings or less, including the Conway knot and the Kinoshita-Terasaka knot which have trivial Alexander polynomial.We also give obstructions to fibering 3-manifolds using twisted Alexander polynomials and detect all knots with 12 crossings or less that are not fibered. For some of these it was unknown whether or not they are fibered. Our work in particular extends the fibering obstructions of Cha to the case of closed manifolds.     

The minimal number of singularities of stable maps between surfaces

For a C^∞ stable map of a closed and connected surface M into the sphere, let c(φ), i(φ) and n(φ) denote the numbers of cusps, fold curves components and nodes respectively. In this paper, in a given homotopy class, we will determine the minimal pair (i,c+n) with respect to the lexicographic order.     

Classifying simple closed curve pairs in the 2-sphere and a generalization of the Schoenflies theorem

A classification theory is developed for pairs of simple closed curves (A,B) in the sphere S², assuming that A∩B has finitely many components. Such a pair of simple closed curves is called an SCC-pair, and two SCC-pairs (A,B) and (A^′,B^′) are equivalent if there is a homeomorphism from S² to itself sending A to A^′ and B to B^′. The simple cases where A and B coincide or A and B are disjoint are easily handled. The component code is defined to provide a classification of all of the other possibilities. The component code is not uniquely determined for a given SCC-pair, but it is straightforward that it is an invariant; i.e., that if (A,B) and (A^′,B^′) are equivalent and C is a component code for (A,B), then C is a component code for (A^′,B^′) as well. It is proved that the component code is a classifying invariant in the sense that if two SCC-pairs have a component code in common, then the SCC-pairs are equivalent. Furthermore code transformations on component codes are defined so that if one component code is known for a particular SCC-pair, then all other component codes for the SCC-pair can be determined via code transformations. This provides a notion of equivalence for component codes; specifically, two component codes are equivalent if there is a code transformation mapping one to the other. The main result of the paper asserts that if C and C^′ are component codes for SCC-pairs (A,B) and (A^′,B^′), respectively, then (A,B) and (A^′,B^′) are equivalent if and only if C and C^′ are equivalent. Finally, a generalization of the Schoenflies theorem to SCC-pairs is presented.     

Local sections of Serre fibrations with 3-manifold fibers

It was proved by H. Whitney in 1933 that a Serre fibration of compact metric spaces admits a global section provided every fiber is homeomorphic to the unit interval [0,1]. An extension of the Whitney's theorem to the case when all fibers are homeomorphic to some fixed compact two-dimensional manifold was proved by the authors (Brodsky et al. (2008) [2]). The main result of this paper proves the existence of local sections in a Serre fibration with all fibers homeomorphic to some fixed compact three-dimensional manifold.     

Sections of Serre fibrations with 2-manifold fibers

It was proved by H. Whitney in 1933 that a Serre fibration of compact metric spaces admits a global section provided every fiber is homeomorphic to the unit interval [0,1]. Results of this paper extend Whitney's theorem to the case when all fibers are homeomorphic to a given compact two-dimensional manifold.     

Branched spines and contact structures on 3-manifolds

We introduce and analyze the characteristic foliation induced by a contact structure on a branched surface, in particular a branched standard spine of a 3-manifold. We extend to (fairly general) singular foliations of branched surfaces the local existence and uniqueness results which hold for genuine surfaces. Moreover we show that global uniqueness holds when restricting to tight structures. We establish branched versions of the elimination lemma. We prove a smooth version of the Gillman-Rolfsen PL-embedding theorem, deducing that branched spines can be used to construct contact structures in a given homotopy class of plane fields. Entrata in Redazione il 6 novembre 1998.     

Signatures of foliated surface bundles and the symplectomorphism groups of surfaces

For any closed oriented surface Σ_g of genus g?3, we prove the existence of foliatedΣ_g-bundles over surfaces such that the signatures of the total spaces are non-zero. We can arrange that the total holonomy of the horizontal foliations preserve a prescribed symplectic form ω on the fiber. We relate the cohomology class represented by the transverse symplectic form to a crossed homomorphism which is an extension of the flux homomorphism from the identity component to the whole group of symplectomorphisms of Σ_g with respect to the symplectic form ω.     

On the mapping class group of a genus 2 handlebody

A complex of incompressible surfaces in a handlebody is constructed so that it contains, as a subcomplex, the complex of curves of the boundary of the handlebody. For genus 2 handlebodies, the group of automorphisms of this complex is used to characterize the mapping class group of the handlebody. In particular, it is shown that all automorphisms of the complex of incompressible surfaces are geometric, that is, induced by a homeomorphism of the handlebody.