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Related papers: Critical Heegaard Surfaces

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We define a 2-normal surface to be one which intersects every 3-simplex of a triangulated 3-manifold in normal triangles and quadrilaterals, with one or two exceptions. The possible exceptions are a pair of octagons, a pair of unknotted…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2009-09-29 David Bachman

A closed, orientable, splitting surface in an oriented $3$-manifold is a topologically minimal surface of index $n$ if its associated disk complex is $(n-2)$-connected but not $(n-1)$-connected. A critical surface is a topologically minimal…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2018-03-16 Daniel Rodman

Let $T$ be a graph in a compact, orientable 3--manifold $M$ and let $\Gamma$ be a subgraph. $T$ can be placed in bridge position with respect to a Heegaard surface $H$. We show that if $H$ is what we call $(T,\Gamma)$-c-weakly reducible in…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2014-03-17 Scott Taylor , Maggy Tomova

We construct families of manifolds that have pairs of genus $g$ Heegaard splittings that must be stabilized roughly $g$ times to become equivalent. We also show that when two unstabilized, boundary-unstabilized Heegaard splittings are…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2008-07-01 David Bachman

Let $H$ be a strongly irreducible Heegaard surface in a closed oriented Riemannian $3$-manifold. We prove that $H$ is either isotopic to a minimal surface of index at most one or isotopic to the boundary of a tubular neighborhood about a…

Differential Geometry · Mathematics 2025-12-02 Daniel Ketover , Yevgeny Liokumovich , Antoine Song

Critical surfaces can be regarded as topological index 2 minimal surfaces which was introduced by David Bachman. In this paper we give a sufficient condition and a necessary condition for self-amalgamated Heegaard surfaces to be critical.

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2013-04-16 Qiang E , Fengchun Lei

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…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2025-08-25 Scott Taylor

Kevin Hartshorn showed that if a three-dimensional manifold $M$ admits a Heegaard surface $\Sigma$ with Hempel distance $d$ then every incompressible surface in $M$ has genus at least $\frac{d}{2}$. Scharlemann-Tomova generalized this,…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2013-08-22 Jesse Johnson

Suppose that a three-manifold M contains infinitely many distinct strongly irreducible Heegaard splittings H + nK, obtained by Haken summing the surface H with n copies of the surface K. We show that K is incompressible. All known examples,…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Yoav Moriah , Saul Schleimer , Eric Sedgwick

In this paper, we give an algorithm to build all compact orientable atoroidal Haken 3-manifolds with tori boundary or closed orientable Haken 3-manifolds, so that in both cases, there are embedded closed orientable separating incompressible…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2015-11-04 Kazuhiro Ichihara , Makoto Ozawa , J. Hyam Rubinstein

Heegaard splittings provide a natural representation of closed 3-manifolds by gluing two handlebodies along a common surface. These splittings can be equivalently given by two finite sets of meridians lying on the surface, which define a…

Computational Geometry · Computer Science 2026-01-01 Henrique Ennes , Clément Maria

Suppose M is a compact orientable irreducible 3-manifold with Heegaard splitting surfaces P and Q. Then either Q is isotopic to a possibly stabilized copy of P or the Hempel distance of the splitting P is no greater than twice the genus of…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2009-03-16 Martin Scharlemann , Maggy Tomova

A Heegaard diagram for a 3-manifold is regarded as a pair of simplexes in the complex of curves on a surface and a Heegaard splitting as a pair of subcomplexes generated by the equivalent diagrams. We relate geometric and combinatorial…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2007-05-23 John Hempel

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…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2014-02-26 Maggy Tomova

We define a notion of Hempel distance for one-sided Heegaard splittings and show that the existence of alternate surfaces restricts distance for one-sided splittings in a manner similar to Hartshorn's and Scharlemann-Tomova's results for…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2011-12-05 Jesse Johnson

For each g greater than one there is a 3-manifold with two genus g Heegaard splittings that require g stabilizations to become equivalent. Previously known examples required at most one stabilization. Control of families of Heegaard…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2014-11-11 Joel Hass , Abigail Thompson , William Thurston

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…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2009-03-11 David Bachman

Let (V,W;F) be a weakly reducible, unstabilized, genus three Heegaard splitting in an orientable, irreducible 3-manifold M. In this article, we prove that either the disk complex D(F) is contractible or F is critical. Hence, the topological…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2016-07-20 Jungsoo Kim

A family of one-vertex triangulations of 3-manifolds, layered-triangulations, is defined. Layered-triangulations are first described for handlebodies and then extended to all 3-manifolds via Heegaard splittings. A complete and detailed…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2007-05-23 William Jaco , J. Hyam Rubinstein

Given a 3-manifold M containing an incompressible surface Q, we obtain an inequality relating the Heegaard genus of M and the Heegaard genera of the components of M - Q. Here the sum of the genera of the components of M - Q is bounded above…

Geometric Topology · Mathematics 2007-05-23 Jennifer Schultens