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).     

Heegaard splittings of twisted torus knots

Little is known on the classification of Heegaard splittings for hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Although Kobayashi gave a complete classification of Heegaard splittings for the exteriors of 2-bridge knots, our knowledge of other classes is extremely limited. In particular, there are very few hyperbolic manifolds that are known to have a unique minimal genus splitting. Here we demonstrate that an infinite class of hyperbolic knot exteriors, namely exteriors of certain “twisted torus knots” originally studied by Morimoto, Sakuma and Yokota, have a unique minimal genus Heegaard splitting of genus two. We also conjecture that these manifolds possess irreducible yet weakly reducible splittings of genus three. There are no known examples of such Heegaard splittings.     

High distance Heegaard splittings from involutions

Fixed an oriented handlebody H=H₊ with boundary F, let η(H₊)=H₋ be the mirror image of H₊ along F, so η(F) is the boundary of H₋, for a map f:F→F, we have a 3-manifold by gluing H₊ and H₋ along F with attaching map f, and denote it by Mf=H_+∪f:F→FH₋. In this note, we show that there are involutions f:F→F which are also reducible, such that Mf have arbitrarily high Heegaard distances.     

A finiteness result for Heegaard splittings

In this paper we show that for a given 3-manifold and a given Heegaard splitting there are finitely many preferred decomposing systems of 3g−3 disjoint essential disks. These are characterized by a combinatorial criterion which is a slight strengthening of Casson-Gordon's rectangle condition. This is in contrast to fact that in general there can exist infinitely many such systems of disks which satisfy just the Casson-Gordon rectangle condition.     

Annuli in generalized Heegaard splittings and degeneration of tunnel number

Abstract. We analyze how a family of essential annuli in a compact 3-manifold will induce, from a strongly irreducible generalized Heegaard splitting of the ambient manifold, generalized Heegaard splittings of the complementary components. There are specific applications to the subadditivity of tunnel number of knots, improving somewhat bounds of Kowng [Kw]. For example, in the absence of 2-bridge summands, the tunnel number of the sum of n knots is no less than the sum of the tunnel numbers. Received: 10 November 1999 / Published online: 28 June 2000     

The Heegaard genera of surface sums

Let M be a compact orientable 3-manifold, and let F be a separating (resp. non-separating) incompressible surface in M which cuts M into two 3-manifolds M₁ and M₂ (resp. a manifold M₁). Then M is called the surface sum (resp. self surface sum) of M₁ and M₂ (resp. M₁) along F, denoted by M=M₁F_∪M₂ (resp. M=M₁F_∪). In this paper, we will study how g(M) is related to χ(F), g(M₁) and g(M₂) when both M₁ and M₂ have high distance Heegaard splittings.     

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.     

Heegaard genera of high distance are additive under annulus sum

Let Mi be a compact orientable 3-manifold, and Ai a non-separating incompressible annulus on ∂Mi, i=1,2. Let h:A₁→A₂ be a homeomorphism, and M=M₁h_∪M₂ the annulus sum of M₁ and M₂ along A₁ and A₂. In the present paper, we show that if Mi has a Heegaard splitting ViSi_∪Wi with distance d(Si)?2g(Mi)+3 for i=1,2, then g(M)=g(M₁)+g(M₂). Moreover, if g(Fi)?2, i=1,2, then the minimal Heegaard splitting of M is unique.     

Isotoping Heegaard surfaces in neat positions with respect to critical distance Heegaard surfaces

Suppose a closed orientable 3-manifold M has a genus g Heegaard surface P with distance d(P)=2g. Let Q be another genus g Heegaard surface which is strongly irreducible. Then we show that there is a height function f:M→I induced from P such that by isotopy, Q is deformed into a position satisfying the following; (1) fQ_| has 2g+2 critical points p₀,p₁,…,p2g+1 with f(p₀)<f(p₁)<?<f(p2g+1) where p₀ is a minimum and p2g+1 is a maximum, and p₁,…,p2g are saddles, (2) if we take regular values ri (i=1,…,2g+1) such that f(pi−1)<ri<f(pi), then f−1(ri)∩Q consists of a circle if i is odd, and f−1(ri)∩Q consists of two circles if i is even.     

A distance for diagrams of a knot

We introduce a distance for diagrams of an oriented knot by using Reidemeister moves linking the diagrams and we give evaluations of the distance. Furthermore, we apply the distance to construct a knot invariant.     

On the Alexander polynomials of knots with Gordian distance one

We consider a condition on a pair of the Alexander polynomials of knots which are realizable by a pair of knots with Gordian distance one. We show that there are infinitely many mutually disjoint infinite subsets in the set of the Alexander polynomials of knots such that every pair of distinct elements in each subset is not realizable by any pair of knots with Gordian distance one. As one of the subsets, we have an infinite set containing the Alexander polynomials of the trefoil knot and the figure eight knot. We also show that every pair of distinct Alexander polynomials such that one is the Alexander polynomial of a slice knot is realizable by a pair of knots of Gordian distance one, so that every pair of distinct elements in the infinite subset consisting of the Alexander polynomials of slice knots is realizable by a pair of knots with Gordian distance one. These results solve problems given by Y. Nakanishi and by I. Jong.     

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.     

Branched spines and Heegaard genus of 3-manifolds

We prove that an invariant of closed 3-manifolds, called the block number, which is defined via flow-spines, equals the Heegaard genus, except for S ³ and S ² × S ¹. We also show that the underlying 3-manifold is uniquely determined by a neighborhood of the singularity of a flow-spine. This allows us to encode a closed 3-manifold by a sequence of signed labeled symbols. The behavior of the encoding under the connected sum and a criterion for reducibility are studied.     

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.     

The distance between two separating,reducing slopes is at most 4

Let M be a simple 3-manifold such that one component of ∂M, say F, has genus at least two. For a slope α on F, we denote by M(α) the manifold obtained by attaching a 2-handle to M along a regular neighborhood of α on F. If M(α) is reducible, then α is called a reducing slope. In this paper, we shall prove that the distance between two separating, reducing slopes on F is at most 4. This work is supported by NSFC (10625102).