Related papers: The Lifting Problem is NP Complete
Given a generic PL map or a generic smooth fold map $f:N^n\to M^m$, where $m\ge n$ and $2(m+k)\ge 3(n+1)$, we prove that $f$ lifts to a PL or smooth embedding $N\to M\times\mathbb R^k$ if and only if its double point locus $\{(x,y)\in…
For many fundamental problems in computational topology, such as unknot recognition and $3$-sphere recognition, the existence of a polynomial-time solution remains unknown. A major algorithmic tool behind some of the best known algorithms…
This paper examines the relationship between the knotting of an embedded surface in $\R^3$ and the knotting of its fold curves, formed by the singular set of projection to a plane. The first result shows that every surface, no matter how…
A notion of general manifolds is introduced. It covers all usual manifolds in mathematics. Essentially, it is a way how to get a bigger 'fibration' over a site which locally coincides with a given one. An enrichment with generalized…
A knitted surface is a surface with or without closed components smoothly properly embedded in $D^2 \times B^2$, which is a generalization of a braided surface. A knitted surface is called a 2-dimensional knit if its boundary is the closure…
A classical approach to investigate a closed projective scheme $W$ consists of considering a general hyperplane section of $W$, which inherits many properties of $W$. The inverse problem that consists in finding a scheme $W$ starting from a…
Tollefson described a variant of normal surface theory for 3-manifolds, called Q-theory, where only the quadrilateral coordinates are used. Suppose $M$ is a triangulated, compact, irreducible, boundary-irreducible 3-manifold. In Q-theory,…
Lifting methods allow to transform hard variational problems such as segmentation and optical flow estimation into convex problems in a suitable higher-dimensional space. The lifted models can then be efficiently solved to a global optimum,…
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…
Normal surface theory, a tool to represent surfaces in a triangulated 3-manifold combinatorially, is ubiquitous in computational 3-manifold theory. In this paper, we investigate a relaxed notion of normal surfaces where we remove the…
In this paper, we study conditions for the existence of an embedding $\widetilde{f} \colon P \to Q \times \mathbb{R}$ such that $f = \mathrm{pr}_Q \circ \widetilde{f}$, where $f \colon P \to Q$ is a piecewise linear map between polyhedra.…
A knotted surface in the 4-sphere may be described by means of a hyperbolic diagram that captures the 0-section of a special Morse function, called a hyperbolic decomposition. We show that every hyperbolic decomposition of a knotted surface…
An ant-like observer confined to a two-dimensional surface traversed by stripes would wonder whether this striped landscape could be devised in such a way as to appear to be the same wherever they go. Differently stated, this is the problem…
A zigzag in a map (a $2$-cell embedding of a connected graph in a connected closed $2$-dimensional surface) is a cyclic sequence of edges satisfying the following conditions: 1) any two consecutive edges lie on the same face and have a…
The lifted multicut problem is a combinatorial optimization problem whose feasible solutions relate one-to-one to the decompositions of a graph $G = (V, E)$. Given an augmentation $\widehat{G} = (V, E \cup F)$ of $G$ and given costs $c \in…
We show that if a non-degenerate PL map $f:N\to M$ lifts to a topological embedding in $M\times\mathbb R^k$ then it lifts to a PL embedding in there. We also show that if a stable smooth map $N^n\to M^m$, $m\ge n$, lifts to a topological…
A branched covering map of surfaces induces a map in the opposite direction between their arc complexes. We represent a branched covering map combinatorially using what we call a lifting picture, and use this representation to computably…
The disk complex of a surface in a 3-manifold is used to define its {\it topological index}. Surfaces with well-defined topological index are shown to generalize well-known classes, such as incompressible, strongly irreducible, and critical…
In this paper, we use normal surface theory to study Dehn filling on a knot-manifold. First, it is shown that there is a finite computable set of slopes on the boundary of a knot-manifold that bound normal and almost normal surfaces in a…
A generic immersion of a planar graph into the 2-space is said to be knotted if there does not exist a trivial embedding of the graph into the 3-space obtained by lifting the immersion with respect to the natural projection from the 3-space…