Related papers: Simplifying 3-manifolds in R^4
This paper addresses several isotopy problems on $4$-manifolds. First, we classify the isotopy classes of embeddings of $\Sigma$ in $\Sigma\times S^2$ that are geometrically dual to $\{\mbox{pt}\}\times S^2$, where $\Sigma$ is a closed…
We study smooth proper embeddings of compact orientable surfaces in compact orientable $4$-manifolds and elements in the mapping class group of that surface which are induced by diffeomorphisms of the ambient $4$-manifolds. We call such…
Generalizing Heegaard splittings of 3-manifolds and trisections of 4-manifolds, we consider multisections of higher-dimensional smooth (or PL) closed orientable manifolds, namely decompositions into 1-handlebodies whose subcollections…
We prove that there is an algorithm which determines whether or not a given 2-polyhedron can be embedded into some integral homology 3-sphere. This is a corollary of the following main result. Let $M$ be a compact connected orientable…
We say that a topological $n$-manifold $N$ is a cubical $n$-manifold if it is contained in the $n$-skeleton of the canonical cubulation $\mathcal{C}$ of ${\mathbb{R}}^{n+k}$ ($k\geq1$). In this paper, we prove that any closed, oriented…
We give a combinatorial proof of a theorem first proved by Souto which says the following. Let M_1 and M_2 be simple 3-manifolds with connected boundary of genus g>0. If M_1 and M_2 are glued via a complicated map, then every minimal…
M. Freedman showed that every homology 3-sphere embeds as a locally flat submanifold of $S^4$. This is in striking contrast to the state of our knowledge of smooth embeddings of homology spheres. This book surveys what is presently known…
We classify isotopy classes of automorphisms (self-homeomorphisms) of 3-manifolds satisfying the Thurston Geometrization Conjecture. The classification is similar to the classification of automorphisms of surfaces developed by Nielsen and…
We construct a number of topologically trivial but smoothly non-trivial families of embeddings of 3-manifolds in 4-manifolds. These include embeddings of homology spheres in $S^4$ that are not isotopic but have diffeomorphic complements,…
We prove that every smoothly embedded surface in a 4--manifold can be isotoped to be in bridge position with respect to a given trisection of the ambient 4--manifold; that is, after isotopy, the surface meets components of the trisection in…
For smooth embeddings of an integral homology 3-sphere in the 6-sphere, we define an integer invariant in terms of their Seifert surfaces. Our invariant gives a bijection between the set of smooth isotopy classes of such embeddings and the…
Given a sequence of properly embedded minimal surfaces in a $3$-manifold with local bounds on area and genus, we prove subsequential convergence, smooth away from a discrete set, to a smooth embedded limit surface, possibly with…
Let M and M' be simple 3-manifolds, each with connected boundary of genus at least two. Suppose that M and M' are glued via a homeomorphism between their boundaries. Then we show that, provided the gluing homeomorphism is `sufficiently…
In this paper we study isotopy classes of closed connected orientable surfaces in the standard $3$-sphere. Such a surface splits the $3$-sphere into two compact connected submanifolds, and by using their Heegaard splittings, we obtain a…
We define an invariant, which we call surface-complexity, of closed 3-manifolds by means of Dehn surfaces. The surface-complexity of a manifold is a natural number measuring how much the manifold is complicated. We prove that it fulfils…
We show that if $M$ is a closed three manifold with a Heegaard splitting with sufficiently big "handlebody distance" then the subgroup of the mapping class group of the Heegaard surface, which extend to both handlebodies is finite. As a…
We give an algorithmic proof of the theorem that a closed orientable irreducible and atoroidal 3-manifold has only finitely many Heegaard splittings in each genus, up to isotopy. The proof gives an algorithm to determine the Heegaard genus…
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…
We show that there exist infinitely many closed 3-manifolds that do not embed in closed symplectic 4-manifolds, disproving a conjecture of Etnyre-Min-Mukherjee. To do this, we construct L-spaces that cannot bound positive or negative…
We present new explicit decompositions of manifolds via so-called fold maps into lower dimensional spaces. Fold maps form a nice class of so-called generic maps, generalizing Morse functions naturally. To understand the topologies and the…