Related papers: The structure of a solvmanifold's Heegaard splitti…

A random Heegaard splitting is a 3-manifold obtained by using a random walk of length n on the mapping class group as the gluing map between two handlebodies. We show that the joint distribution of random walks of length n and their…

An invariant of orientable 3-manifolds is defined by taking the minimum $n$ such that a given 3-manifold embeds in the connected sum of $n$ copies of $S^2 \times S^2$, and we call this $n$ the embedding number of the 3-manifold. We give…

Irreducible symplectic manifolds are one of the three building blocks of compact K\"ahler manifolds with numerically trivial canonical bundle by the Beauville-Bogomolov decomposition theorem. There are several singular analogues of…

An involutive diffeomorphism $\sigma$ of a connected smooth manifold $M$ is called dissecting if the complement of its fixed point set is not connected. Dissecting involutions on a complete Riemannian manifold are closely related to…

We show that if $M$ is a fibered, orientable 3-manifold, and if $\pi_1 M$ has 1-relator presentation, then the presentation is induced by a Heegaard splitting of $M$. A corollary is that, for these manifolds, the rank of $\pi_1 M$ is equal…

Given a closed, smooth, connected, orientable $4$-manifold $M$, whose integral homology groups can have $2$-torsion, we determine the homotopy decomposition of the double suspension $\Sigma^2M$ as wedge sums of some elementary…

In the closed, non-Haken, hyperbolic class of examples generated by (2p,q) Dehn fillings of Figure 8 knot space, the geometrically incompressible one-sided surfaces are identified by the filling ratio p/q and determined to be unique in all…

A Heegaard splitting which admits a unique pair of disjoint compression disks on distinct sides is said to be keen weakly reducible. This paper provides an construction of keen weakly reducible Heegaard splittings of arbitrary genus except…

We classify the $5$-dimensional homogeneous geometries in the sense of Thurston. The present paper (part 2 of 3) classifies those in which the linear isotropy representation is either irreducible or trivial. The $5$-dimensional geometries…

We give the rectangle condition for strong irreducibility of Heegaard splittings of $3$-manifolds with non-empty boundary. We apply this to a generalized Heegaard splitting of a $2$-fold covering of $S^3$ branched along a link. The…

We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a simple closed curve on the boundary of a genus two handlebody to decompose the handlebody into (torus with one boundary component times [0,1]. We use this condition to decide whether a…

The dual complex of a singularity is defined, up-to homotopy, using resolutions of singularities. In many cases, for instance for isolated singularities, we identify and study a "minimal" representative of the homotopy class that is well…

For every integer $k\geq 2$, we construct infinite families of mutually nondiffeomorphic irreducible smooth structures on the topological $4$-manifolds $(2k-1)(S^2\times S^2)$ and $(2k-1)(\CP#\CPb)$, the connected sums of $2k-1$ copies of…

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 consider a Heegaard splitting M=H_1 \cup_S H_2 of a 3-manifold M having an essential disk D in H_1 and an essential surface F in H_2 with |D \cap F|=1. (We require that boundary of F is in S when H_2 is a compressionbody with non-empty…

Suppose $K$ is a knot in $S^3$ with bridge number $n$ and bridge distance greater than $2n$. We show that there are at most ${2n\choose n}$ distinct minimal genus Heegaard splittings of $S^3\setminus\eta(K)$. These splittings can be divided…

We describe an example of a closed orientable 3-manifold with distinct distance three genus two Heegaard splittings. This demonstrates that the constructions of alternate genus two Heegaard splittings of closed orientable 3-manifolds…

In this paper we give a method to construct Heegaard splittings of oriented graph manifolds with orientable bases. A graph manifold is a closed $3$-manifold admitting only Seifert-fibered pieces in its Jaco-Shalen decomposition; for…

A standard fact about two incompressible surfaces in an irreducible 3-manifold is that one can move one of them by isotopy so that their intersection becomes $\pi_1$-injective. By extending it on the maps of some 3-dimensional…

We construct infinitely many smooth 4-manifolds which are homotopy equivalent to $S^2$ but do not admit a spine, i.e., a piecewise-linear embedding of $S^2$ which realizes the homotopy equivalence. This is the remaining case in the…