English

Arc diagrams on 3-manifold spines

Geometric Topology 2024-05-13 v3

Abstract

We develop a theory of link projections to trivalent spines of 3-manifolds. We prove a Reidemeister Theorem providing a set of combinatorial moves sufficient to relate the projections of isotopic links. We also show that any link admits a crossingless projection to any special spine and we refine our theorem to provide a set of combinatorial moves sufficient to relate crossingless diagrams. Finally, we discuss the connection to Turaev's shadow world, interpreting our result as a statement about shadow equivalence of a class of 4-manifolds.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2202.02007,
  title  = {Arc diagrams on 3-manifold spines},
  author = {Jack Brand and Benjamin A. Burton and Zsuzsanna Dancso and Alexander He and Adele Jackson and Joan Licata},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2202.02007},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

17 pages, 18 figures. v2: Extended references, added some questions and remarks, acknowledgements, and minor clarifications. v3: Minor correction in Lemma 2.3

R2 v1 2026-06-24T09:19:26.543Z