Related papers: Disk complexes and genus two Heegaard splittings f…

In the curve complex for a surface, a handlebody set is the set of loops that bound properly embedded disks in a given handlebody bounded by the surface. A boundary set is the set of non-separating loops in the curve complex that bound…

The Powell Conjecture states that the Goeritz group of the Heegaard splitting of the $3$-sphere is finitely generated; furthermore, four specific elements suffice to generate the group. Zupan demonstrated that the conjecture holds if and…

Let M_1 and M_2 be compact, orientable 3-manifolds, and M the manifold obtained by gluing some component F of \bdy M_1 to some component of \bdy M_2 by a homeomorphism \phi. We show that when \phi is "sufficiently complicated" then (1) the…

We give a new, algebraically computable formula for skein modules of closed 3-manifolds via Heegaard splittings. As an application, we prove that skein modules of closed 3-manifolds are finite-dimensional, resolving in the affirmative a…

Let M be a (possibly non-orientable) compact 3-manifold with (possibly empty) boundary consisting of tori and Klein bottles. Let $X\subset\partial M$ be a trivalent graph such that $\partial M\setminus X$ is a union of one disc for each…

We describe for each postive integer $k$ a 3-manifold with Heegaard surfaces of genus $2k$ and $2k-1$ such that any common stabilization of these two surfaces has genus at least $3k-1$. We also show that for every positive $n$, there is a…

We use Heath's, Moriah's and Schultens's results to prove that irreducible Heegaard splittings of orientable Seifert manifolds with nonorientable base space are either vertical or horizontal.

A Heegaard splitting of a $3$-manifold is flippable if there is an isotopy that interchanges the two sides of the Heegaard splitting. We explore which Heegaard splittings of Seifert fibered spaces are flippable.

A 3-manifold is Haken if it contains a topologically essential surface. The Virtual Haken Conjecture posits that every irreducible 3-manifold with infinite fundamental group has a finite cover which is Haken. In this paper, we study random…

Let $M$ be an orientable, irreducible $3$-manifold and $(\mathcal{V},\mathcal{W};F)$ a weakly reducible, unstabilized Heegaard splitting of $M$ of genus at least three. In this article, we define an equivalent relation $\sim$ on the set of…

It is well-known that Heegaard genus is additive under connected sum of 3-manifolds. We show that Heegaard genus of contact 3-manifolds is not necessarily additive under contact connected sum. We also prove some basic properties of the…

An expository survey article on Heegaard splittings

We examine three key conjectures in 3-manifold theory: the virtually Haken conjecture, the positive virtual b_1 conjecture and the virtually fibred conjecture. We explore the interaction of these conjectures with the following seemingly…

We classify all closed non-orientable P2-irreducible 3-manifolds having complexity up to 6 and we describe some having complexity 7. We show in particular that there is no such manifold with complexity less than 6, and that those having…

We use thin position of Heegaard splittings to give a new proof of Haken's Lemma that a Heegaard surface of a reducible manifold is reducible and of Scharlemann's ``Strong Haken Theorem'': a Heegaard surface for a 3-manifold may be isotoped…

In this paper, by putting a separating incompressible surface in a 3-manifold into Morse position relative to the height function associated to a strongly irreducible Heegaard splitting, we show that an incompressible subsurface of the…

Suppose N is a compressible boundary component of a compact orientable irreducible 3-manifold M and Q is an orientable properly embedded essential surface in M in which each component is incident to N and no component is a disk. Let VN and…

We study the growth of double cosets in the class of groups with contracting elements, including relatively hyperbolic groups, CAT(0) groups and mapping class groups among others. Generalizing a recent work of Gitik and Rips about…

For most aspherical Seifert-fibered 3-manifolds $M$, the space of Seifert fiberings $SF(M)$ is known to have contractible components. It is also known that the space of Hopf fiberings of the three-sphere is noncontractible. We provide the…

We consider the Goeritz groups of the Heegaard splittings induced from twisted book decompositions. We show that there exist Heegaard splittings of distance $2$ that have the infinite-order mapping class groups whereas that are not induced…