Related papers: On moves between branched coverings of S^3: The ca…
After surveying existing proofs that every closed, orientable 3-manifold is parallelizable, we give three proofs using minimal background. In particular, our proofs use neither spin structures nor the theory of Stiefel-Whitney classes.
We give an algorithm for a surgery description of a $p$-fold cyclic branched cover of $B^3$ branched along a tangle. We generalize constructions of Montesinos and Akbulut-Kirby.
We survey the interactions between foliations and contact structures in dimension three, with an emphasis on sutured manifolds and invariants of sutured contact manifolds. This paper contains two original results: the fact that a closed…
A clover is a framed trivalent graph with some additional structure, embedded in a 3-manifold. We define surgery on clovers, generalizing surgery on Y-graphs used earlier by the second author to define a new theory of finite-type invariants…
We prove that Stein surfaces with boundary coincide up to orientation preserving diffeomorphisms with simple branched coverings of $\B^4$ whose branch set is a positive braided surface. As a consequence, we have that a smooth oriented…
Branched covers are applied frequently in topology - most prominently in the construction of closed oriented PL d-manifolds. In particular, strong bounds for the number of sheets and the topology of the branching set are known for dimension…
We give a simple criterion when a Gluck twisting an odd smooth 4-manifold along a 2-sphere $S\subset X$ does not change its diffeomorphism type. We obtain this by handlebody techniques and plug twisting operation, getting a slightly…
We classify involutions acting on spherical 3-manifolds up to conjugacy. Our geometric approach provides insights into numerous topological properties of these involutions.
We consider normal affine T-varieties X endowed with an action of finite abelian group G commuting with the action of T. For such varieties we establish the existence of G-equivariant geometrico-combinatorial presentations in the sense of…
A normal pseudomanifold is a pseudomanifold in which the links of simplices are also pseudomanifolds. So, a normal 2-pseudomanifold triangulates a connected closed 2-manifold. But, normal $d$-pseudomanifolds form a broader class than…
A simplified trisection is a trisection map on a 4-manifold such that, in its critical value set, there is no double point and cusps only appear in triples on innermost fold circles. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a…
We consider knots equipped with a representation of their knot groups onto a dihedral group D_{2n} (where n is odd). To each such knot there corresponds a closed 3-manifold, the (irregular) dihedral branched covering space, with the…
By use of a variety of techniques (most based on constructions of quasipositive knots and links, some old and others new), many smooth 3-manifolds are realized as transverse intersections of complex surfaces in complex 3-space with strictly…
We describe an algorithm for the enumeration of (candidates of) vertex-transitive combinatorial $d$-manifolds. With an implementation of our algorithm, we determine, up to combinatorial equivalence, all combinatorial manifolds with a…
After a short summary of known results on surface-complexity of closed 3-manifolds, we will classify all closed orientable 3-manifolds with surface-complexity one.
Given a knot in $S^3$, one can associate to it a surface diffeomorphism in two different ways. First, an arbitrary knot in $S^{3}$ can be represented by braids, which can be thought of as diffeomorphisms of punctured disks. Second, if the…
It is known by A. Loi and R. Piergallini that a closed, oriented, smooth 3-manifold is Stein fillable if and only if it has a positive open book decomposition. In the present paper we will show that for every link L in a Stein fillable…
A triangulation of a polygon is a subdivision of it into triangles, using diagonals between its vertices. Two different triangulations of a polygon can be related by a sequence of flips: a flip replaces a diagonal by the unique other…
We consider links that are alternating on surfaces embedded in a compact 3-manifold. We show that under mild restrictions, the complement of the link decomposes into simpler pieces, generalising the polyhedral decomposition of alternating…
We prove that for any closed, connected, oriented 3-manifold M, there exists an infinite family of 2-fold branched covers of M that are hyperbolic 3-manifolds and surface bundles over the circle with arbitrarily large volume.