Related papers: A topologically minimal, weakly reducible, unstabi…

Heegaard splittings stratify 3-manifolds by complexity; only $S^3$ admits a genus-zero splitting, and only $S^3$, $S^1 \times S^2$, and lens spaces $L(p,q)$ admit genus-one splittings. In dimension four, the second author and Jeffrey Meier…

We prove that if a fibered knot $K$ with genus greater than one in a three-manifold $M$ has a sufficiently complicated monodromy, then $K$ induces a minimal genus Heegaard splitting $P$ that is unique up to isotopy, and small genus Heegaard…

A Heegaard diagram for a 3-manifold M is a closed, oriented surface S together with a pair (X, Y) of compact 1-manifolds in S whose components serve as attaching curves for the 2-handles of the two sides of a Heegaard splitting for M. The…

This paper studies the question of whether minimal genus Heegaard splittings of exterior spaces of knots which are connected sums are weakly reducible or not. Furthermore it is shown that the Heegaard splittings of the knots used by…

Let M_1 and M_2 be compact, orientable 3-manifolds with incompressible boundary, and M the manifold obtained by gluing with a homeomorphism $\phi:\bdy M_1 \to \bdy M_2$. We analyze the relationship between the sets of low genus Heegaard…

We classify isotopy classes of irreducible Heegaard splittings of solvmanifolds. If the monodromy of the solvmanifold can be expressed as a 2 x 2 matrix with 0 in the lower right hand corner (as always is true when the absolute value of the…

Haken showed that the Heegaard splittings of reducible 3-manifolds are reducible, that is, a reducing 2-sphere can be found which intersects the Heegaard surface in a single simple closed curve. When the genus of the "interesting" surface…

We show that the standard minimal genus Heegaard splitting of (closed orientable surface)\times S^1 is a critical Heegaard splitting.

In this paper, we shall prove that any Heegaard splitting of a $\partial$-reducible 3-manifold $M$, say $M=W\cup V$, can be obtained by doing connected sums, boundary connected sums and self-boundary connected sums from Heegaard splittings…

In this paper we show that for a given 3-manifold and a given Heegaard splitting there are finitely many preferred decomposing systems of $3g - 3$ disjoint essential disks. These are characterized by a combinatorial criterion which is a…

We show that the number of genus $g$ embedded minimal surfaces in $\mathbb{S}^3$ tends to infinity as $g\rightarrow\infty$. The surfaces we construct resemble doublings of the Clifford torus with curvature blowing up along torus knots as…

In this article, we prove that a tunnel number two knot induces a critical Heegaard splitting in its exterior if there are two weak reducing pairs such that each weak reducing pair contains the cocore disk of each tunnel. Moreover, we prove…

Let $M$ be a closed, orientable, and irreducible 3-manifold with Heegaard genus two. We prove that if the fundamental group of $M$ is left-orderable then $M$ admits a co-orientable taut foliation.

We give two criteria for diagrams of Heegaard splittings of 3-manifolds. Weaker one of them guarantees that the splitting is strongly irreducible, and the stronger one guarantees in addition that the Goeritz group is finite. They are…

Let M be a closed, irreducible, genus two 3-manifold, and F a maximal collection of pairwise disjoint, closed, orientable, incompressible surfaces embedded in M. Then each component manifold M_i of M-F has handle number at most one, i.e.…

We construct infinitely many manifolds admitting both strongly irreducible and weakly reducible minimal genus Heegaard splittings. Both closed manifolds and manifolds with boundary tori are constructed.

We show that the number of stabilizations needed to interchange the handlebodies of a Heegaard splitting of a closed 3-manifold by an isotopy is bounded below by the smaller of twice its genus or half its Hempel distance. This is a…

We construct families of pairs of Heegaard splittings that must be stabilized several times to become equivalent. The first such pair differs only by their orientation. These are genus n splittings of a closed 3-manifold that must be…

The Heegaard genus g of an irreducible closed orientable 3-manifold puts a limit on the number and complexity of the pieces that arise in the Jaco-Shalen-Johannson decomposition of the manifold by its canonical tori. For example, if p of…

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…