Related papers: Heegaard structure respects complicated JSJ decomp…

Let M be a compressionbody containing a graph T (with at least one edge) such that \boundary_+ M is parallel to the union of T and \boundary_- M. We extend methods of Hayashi and Shimokawa to classify bridge surfaces for T. The results of…

Let M be a compact connected orientable 3-manifold, with non-empty boundary that contains no 2-spheres. We investigate the existence of two properly embedded disjoint surfaces S_1 and S_2 such that M - (S_1 \cup S_2) is connected. We show…

For a boundary-reducible $3$-manifold $M$ with $\partial M$ a genus $g$ surface, we show that if $M$ admits a genus $g+1$ Heegaard surface $S$, then the disk complex of $S$ is simply connected. Also we consider the connectedness of the…

Let $M$ be a surface sum of 3-manifolds $M_1$ and $M_2$ along a bounded connected surface $F$ and $\partial_i$ be the component of $\partial M_i$ containing $F$. If $M_i$ has a high distance Heegaard splitting, then any minimal Heegaard…

We prove a finiteness result for the $\partial$-patterned guts decomposition of all 3-manifolds obtained by splitting a given orientable, irreducible and $\partial$-irreducible 3-manifold along a closed incompressible surface. Then using…

This paper gives a geometric interpretation of bordered Heegaard Floer homology for manifolds with torus boundary. If $M$ is such a manifold, we show that the type D structure $\widehat{\mathit{CFD}}$ may be viewed as a set of immersed…

We extend the notion of thin multiple Heegaard splittings of a link in a 3-manifold to take into consideration not only compressing disks but also cut-disks for the Heegaard surfaces. We prove that if H is a c-strongly compressible bridge…

We address a special case of the Stabilization Problem for Heegaard splittings, establishing an upper bound on the number of stabilizations required to make a Heegaard splitting of a Haken 3-manifold isotopic to an amalgamation along an…

A famous example of Casson and Gordon shows that a Haken 3-manifold can have an infinite family of irreducible Heegaard splittings with different genera. In this paper, we prove that a closed non-Haken 3-manifold has only finitely many…

Suppose $V\cup_S W$ is a weakly reducible Heegaard splitting of a closed 3-manifold which admits only $n$ pairs of disjoint compression disks on distinct sides and $g>2$. We show $V\cup_S W$ admits an untelescoping:…

A Heegaard splitting of a closed, orientable three-manifold satisfies the disjoint curve property if the splitting surface contains an essential simple closed curve and each handlebody contains an essential disk disjoint from this curve…

We give several criteria on a closed, oriented 3-manifold that will imply that it is the boundary of a (simply connected) 4-manifold that admits infinitely many distinct smooth structures. We also show that any weakly fillable contact…

It has been shown elsewhere that a strongly irreducible Heegaard splitting surface Q of a compact orientable 3-manifold M can, under reasonable side conditions, intersect a ball or a solid torus in M in only a few possible ways. Here we…

We study the way a strongly irreducible Heegaard surface $\Sigma$ intersects a knot exterior $X$ embedded in a 3-manifold, and show that if $\Sigma \cap \partial X$ consists of simple closed curves which are essential in both $\Sigma$ and…

We show that a smooth embedding of a closed 3-manifold in S^3 x R can be isotoped so that every generic level divides S^3 x t into two handlebodies (i.e., is Heegaard) provided the original embedding has a unique local maximum with respect…

We describe some of the algebra underlying the decomposition of planar grid diagrams. This provides a useful toy model for an extension of Heegaard Floer homology to 3-manifolds with parametrized boundary. This paper is meant to serve as a…

We give a new elementary proof of the parallelizability of closed orientable 3-manifolds. We use as the main tool the fact that any such manifold admits a Heegaard splitting.

We give the rectangle condition for strong irreducibility of Heegaard splittings of $3$-manifolds with non-empty boundary. We apply this to a generalized Heegaard splitting of a $2$-fold covering of $S^3$ branched along a link. The…

Non-isotopic Heegaard splittings of non-minimal genus were known previously only for very special 3-manifolds. We show in this paper that they are in fact a wide spread phenomenon in 3-manifold theory: We exhibit a large class of knots and…

This paper has been withdrawn by the author, as the proof of Theorem 3.2 contains a flaw; subsequently, both it and Theorem 3.3 are not known to hold. The content of Section 5 has been improved and expanded upon in two separate papers. The…