English

Bounded domains in the 3-dimensional space

Geometric Topology 2025-11-04 v1

Abstract

We study the shapes of compact connected 3-manifolds with connected smooth boundary in the 3-dimensional Euclidean space R3\boldsymbol{R}^3. We call them bounded domains. Since compact connected surfaces in R3\boldsymbol{R}^3 bound unique bounded domains, the objects are the same as compact connected surfaces in R3\boldsymbol{R}^3. To understand their shapes, we use the Morse height functions F:MRF: M\to \boldsymbol{R} which are the orthogonal projections from the bounded domains MM to lines, and their Reeb graphs RF\mathcal{R}_F and RFM\mathcal{R}_{F|\partial M} which are obtained by identifying connected components of level sets of maps to points. We introduce the weighted Reeb graphs RFw\mathcal{R}_F^w and the weighted indexed Reeb graphs RFwi\mathcal{R}_F^{wi}. We investigate whether a bounded domain admits a Morse height function FF with the weighted Reeb graphs RFw\mathcal{R}_F^w with small weight. We show that if the weights are less than 2. MM can be deformed by isotopy to an embedded handlebody. The original question which lead us to investigate bounded domains is the following question: "Can the domain MM be isotoped so that, for every point of the boundary M\partial M, there is a ray from the point which intersects the domain MM only at the end point?" In other words, "Can MM be isotoped to ι(M)\iota(M) so that every point of ι(M)\partial \iota (M) is visible from the infinity?" Under the minNCP hypothesis, we show that if a bounded domain MM can be isotoped to ι(M)\iota(M) so that every point of the boundary is visible from the infinity, then MM is an embedded handlebody. Here the minNCP hypothesis asserts that, if MM is isotopic to a visible ι(M)\iota(M), ι(M)\iota(M) can be taken so that z:ι(M)Rz:\iota(M)\to \boldsymbol{R} is a Morse height function with minimum number of critical points in the isotopy class of the embedding MR3M\subset \boldsymbol{R}^3.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.01278,
  title  = {Bounded domains in the 3-dimensional space},
  author = {Takashi Tsuboi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.01278},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:18:41.683Z