English

On the Invalidity of Lemma 2.5 in our previous work on the Powell Conjecture

Geometric Topology 2025-03-26 v3

Abstract

In our previous version entitled ``The reducing sphere complexes for the 3-sphere are connected: a proof of the Powell Conjecture", we claimed to prove the Powell Conjecture, which states that the Goeritz group of the genus-gg Heegaard splitting of the 3-sphere is finitely generated for any non-negative integer gg. However, we have found a critical error in the proof of Lemma 2.5 in that version. In this note, we prove that the statement of Lemma 2.5 does not hold in general. This invalidates a key step in our argument and leaves the proof of the Powell Conjecture incomplete. Consequently, the Powell Conjecture remains an open problem in the case of g4g \geq 4.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2406.13309,
  title  = {On the Invalidity of Lemma 2.5 in our previous work on the Powell Conjecture},
  author = {Sangbum Cho and Yuya Koda and Jung Hoon Lee and Nozomu Sekino},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.13309},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

5 pages, 2 figures