Questions tagged [3-manifolds]

A three-manifold is a space that locally looks like Euclidean three-dimensional space

107 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
37 votes
0 answers
2k views

What is the three-dimensional hyperbolic volume of a four-manifold?

Every smooth closed orientable 4-manifold may be constructed via a handle decomposition. Before asking a couple of questions, I recall some well-known facts about handle-decompositions of 4-manifolds. ...
Bruno Martelli's user avatar
23 votes
0 answers
2k views

Are there lots of integer homology three-spheres?

The problem of counting combinatorial three-spheres with $N$ simplices has implications for some partition functions in physics (see a paper by Benedetti and Ziegler for more background and references)...
John Pardon's user avatar
  • 18.3k
19 votes
0 answers
562 views

The oriented homeomorphism problem for Haken 3-manifolds

Haken famously described an algorithm to solve the homeomorphism problem for the 3-manifolds that bear his name (fleshed out by many others, including Hemion and Matveev who fixed some gaps). But it'...
HJRW's user avatar
  • 24k
16 votes
0 answers
326 views

Is tightness decidable?

Given a contact structure on a three-manifold, is there an algorithm to decide whether or not it tight? For concreteness' sake, let's agree to represent the given contact three-manifold via an open ...
John Pardon's user avatar
  • 18.3k
14 votes
0 answers
316 views

Are there exotic twisted doubles of 4-manifolds?

Take a smooth 4-manifold $X$ whose boundary has a diffeomorphism $\tau: \partial X \to \partial X$ that extends to a homeomorphism but not a diffeomorphism of $X$. (By Matveyev and Curtis-Freedman-...
Kyle Hayden's user avatar
13 votes
0 answers
174 views

Is there a Handle Approximation theorem?

The cellular approximation theorem states that given a continuous map between two CW complexes $f : X \to Y$, then $f$ is homotopic to a cellular map - that is some map $f'$ with $f'(X_n) \subset Y_n$ ...
user101010's user avatar
  • 5,319
12 votes
0 answers
222 views

3-manifolds with stacked links

Stacked spheres A triangulation of a 2-dimensional sphere is called a stacked sphere if it is obtained inductively from the boundary of a 3-simplex by deleting a 2-face (triangle) $T$ adding a new ...
Gil Kalai's user avatar
  • 24.2k
12 votes
0 answers
260 views

3-manifold foliated by circles is Seifert fibered

Let $M$ be a compact 3-manifold with boundary equipped with a 1-dimensional foliation all of whose leaves are circles. An old theorem of Epstein says that $M$ is a Seifert fibered space. The proof of ...
Laura's user avatar
  • 121
11 votes
0 answers
171 views

Natural knot homology

All knot homology theories I've seen share a flaw: their definitions explicitly use some combinatorial choices (such as a diagram presentation). The coin, however, has two sides and the other one is ...
Mikhail Shkolnikov's user avatar
11 votes
0 answers
349 views

Fox re-imbedding theorem in dimension four

Fox re-imbedding theorem states the following: A compact 3-manifold $M$ with boundary that embeds in the three-sphere $S^3$, can be re-imbedded in $S^3$ so that its complement is a union of ...
Bruno Martelli's user avatar
10 votes
0 answers
245 views

Contact structures associated to taut foliations

Eliashberg and Thurston showed that a taut foliation may be deformed to tight (positive and negative) contact structures. Vogel proved that for a taut foliation without torus leaves, the associated ...
Ian Agol's user avatar
  • 66.8k
10 votes
0 answers
127 views

Compatibility of spherical and hyperbolic geometry for fibred knots

Hyperbolic knots and links have a lovely peculiarity that you can always find a position for them in $S^3$ making two groups the same, one defined using the spherical geometry of $S^3$, and the other ...
Ryan Budney's user avatar
  • 42.9k
9 votes
0 answers
274 views

Krull rings and determinantal invariants

During another attempt to come to grips with Hillman's excellent book Algebraic Invariants of Links, I am having difficulty figuring out why Krull rings are the setting for Chapter 3- the natural ...
Daniel Moskovich's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
375 views

The figure eight knot complement in $S^3$

Recently I have been going through the book Hyperbolic Knot Theory by Jessica Purcell. Exercise 5.4 (on page 101) gives us a presentation of the fundamental group of $S^3 - K$ where $K$ is the figure-...
T ghosh's user avatar
  • 81
8 votes
0 answers
150 views

Is the number of prime factors of 3-manifolds obtained by Dehn surgery along a link with $N$ components in $S^3$ bounded from above?

For a given $N$, is the number of prime factors of 3-manifolds obtained by Dehn surgery along a link with $N$ components in $S^3$ bounded from above? The Two Summands Conjecture states that surgery ...
Arshak Aivazian's user avatar
8 votes
0 answers
403 views

Integer surgeries along links yielding lens spaces

Does there exist an integer $N$ such that any lens space $L(p,q)$ can be obtained by integer surgery from $S^3$ along a link $L$ with at most $N$ components? EDIT: I have worked out the comment by ...
Marc Kegel's user avatar
  • 1,314
7 votes
0 answers
141 views

Long non-deformable hyperbolic fillings

The title and question have been edited in light of Ian Agol's comment. The previous question was stated in terms of the wrong notion of length to discuss deformations: What is the longest slope $\...
Neil Hoffman's user avatar
  • 5,221
7 votes
0 answers
156 views

Two papers on surface diffeomorphisms

The following two papers appeared in the reference of a paper i was reading.It seems that neither is published formally.Is there a website where i could find them? A. Casson, Cobordism Invariants of ...
user122321's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
709 views

Expository accounts of the Thurston norm

Other than Thurston's original paper (which I find quite hard to read), are there any expositions of the basic properties of the Thurston norm? In particular, I'm interested in a proof of his ...
Sasha's user avatar
  • 71
6 votes
0 answers
218 views

Classifying nested 3-manifolds with fundamental group property

Let $M_1\subseteq M_2\subseteq\mathbb R^3$ be closed connected subsets with smooth boundary. Suppose that every closed loop in $M_1$ is freely homotopic inside $M_2$ to a closed loop inside $M_2\...
John Pardon's user avatar
  • 18.3k
6 votes
0 answers
224 views

Is a compact aspherical 3-manifold irreducible

Let $M^3$ be a compact $3$-manifold (possibly with boundary). Suppose $M$ is aspherical, can we show that $M$ must be irreducible? Here, irreducible means any embedded sphere in $M$ bounds a $3$-ball.
Totoro's user avatar
  • 2,515
6 votes
0 answers
107 views

Visualizing the framing of 3-manifolds induced from a bouding 4-manifold

Assume $M$ is a closed 3-manifold bounding a 4-dimensional 2-handlebody $X$ which is obtained by surgery on an even link $L$, $i.e.,$ a link whose framings are even integers. Then it's a standard fact ...
Shawn Cui's user avatar
  • 121
6 votes
0 answers
311 views

Can the analytic arc of an irred. $\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})$-character always be lifted to an analytic arc of an irred. representation?

Is there an example of an irreducible and boundary irreducible $3$-manifold $M$ with torus boundary and a non-abelian representation $\rho: \pi_1(M) \to \mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})$, a non-constant ...
christian's user avatar
  • 481
6 votes
0 answers
363 views

Construction of 3D Topological Quantum Field Theory from a 2D Modular Functor

I have been reading Bakalov and Kirillov's Lectures on Tensor Categories and Modular Functors in which the authors state that a direct construction of a $C$-extended 3D TQFT from a $C$-extended 2D ...
dv1's user avatar
  • 61
6 votes
0 answers
388 views

A conjecture of Thurston and possibly Weeks too

What is the status of the following conjecture: "... [w]hen the shortest simple closed geodesics are repeatedly removed from any complete hyperbolic 3-manifold of finite volume, eventually one ...
Robert Haraway's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
76 views

Transverse open book decompositions supporting the same contact structure

An open book decomposition on an oriented 3-manifold $M$ is a fibered oriented link $B\subset M$, bounding a foliation by Seifert surfaces $\Sigma_t \subset M$, $t\in S^1$, $\partial \Sigma_t = B$. A ...
Ian Agol's user avatar
  • 66.8k
5 votes
0 answers
122 views

Heegaard diagrams of prime 3-manifolds

Are there some known results which give a classification of closed prime 3-manifolds up to their Heegaard diagrams? (That is, providing a collection of Heegaard diagrams which exhausts all prime ...
Pandora's user avatar
  • 469
4 votes
0 answers
118 views

Triangulating piecewise-linear manifolds

Question 1: Is this the mainstream definition of a PL-manifold? Definition. A PL-manifold is a manifold with an atlas $(\varphi_i)_{i\in I}$ in which all transition maps $\varphi_j\circ\varphi_i^{-1}$ ...
Vadim's user avatar
  • 346
4 votes
0 answers
164 views

Every closed surface divides a closed 3-manifold $X$ into two parts if and only if $H_1(X)$ is finite

My friend is looking for proof of the following statement Every closed surface divides a closed 3-manifold $X$ into two parts if and only if $H_1(X; \mathbb{Z})$ is finite. Rumor source: Justin ...
Arshak Aivazian's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
135 views

Survey or good reference of taut foliations

I am interested in the topology of foliations. In particular, I want to understand taut foliations, or projectively Anosov flows, and Anosov flows. I guess that A. Candel and L. Conlon, Foliations I (...
user473085's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
155 views

Extension of smooth structure on three dimensional topological manifolds

Let $M$ be a three dimensional compact topological manifold and $U$ an open set in $M$ homeomorphic to some smooth $C^k$ manifold $U'$, $1 \leq k \leq \omega$. Can we extend the smooth structure on $U$...
coudy's user avatar
  • 18.5k
4 votes
0 answers
114 views

Surgery diagrams of 3-dim abstract open books

Starting with an abstract open book $(\Sigma,\phi)$, I would like to understand some of the manifolds that I could obtain. Given a surface $\Sigma$ and monodromy $\phi$, it is not hard to find a Kirby ...
no_idea's user avatar
  • 459
4 votes
0 answers
183 views

3-manifold proof of Grushko's theorem

Grushko's theorem says that given an epimorphism $\phi: F \to G_1 * G_2$ where $F$ is a finitely-generated free group, there exists. subgroups $F_1$ and $F_2$ of $F$ so that $F = F_1 * F_2$ and $\phi(...
user101010's user avatar
  • 5,319
4 votes
0 answers
211 views

Mapping class group of a twisted I-bundle over $RP^2$

$\DeclareMathOperator\Mod{Mod}\DeclareMathOperator\Homeo{Homeo}$Let $\Mod(M)=\pi_0(\Homeo(M))$ be the mapping class group of a manifold, possibly with boundary (I'm including the orientation reversing ...
Giacomo Bascapè's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
119 views

Is finding boundary-reducing discs for PL 3-manifolds with boundary pattern computationally efficient?

I am working with manifolds with boundary pattern, as defined by Matveev in his book Algorithmic Topology and Classification of 3-Manifolds. A manifold with boundary pattern is a pair $(M, P)$ where $...
JPQ's user avatar
  • 41
4 votes
0 answers
81 views

Infinitely many distinct minimal tori

Let $M = \Sigma_g \times \mathbb{S}^1$ be endowed with the product metric, where $\Sigma_g$ is a compact orientable surface of genus $g$ with an arbitrary fixed metric. Is it true that there are ...
Eduardo Longa's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
362 views

Contractibility and orientation double cover

Question. Let $M$ be a triangulated non-orientable 3-manifold with non-orientable boundary. (It is possible to assume that the boundary is the Klein bottle.) Let $\ell$ be a non-orientable loop on the ...
Martin Tancer's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
183 views

Are Turaev-Viro invariants holonomic?

Consider a 3-manifold $M$ with a boundary, which is a genus $g\geq 1$ surface $\Sigma$. Fix a triangulation $T$ of $\Sigma$. Then Turaev-Viro invariants $TV_q(M)$ are functions, assigning to integer ...
Daniil Rudenko's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
244 views

Are triangulations with common refinements PL-homeomorphic?

Do there exist simplicial triangulations $K_1$ and $K_2$ of a topological manifold $M$ such that $K_1$ and $K_2$ have a common subdivision but they are not PL-homeomorphic? Ideally, I would like an ...
user136604's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
195 views

3d Chern-Simons TQFT of gauge group (E8)$_1$ = SO(16)$_1 \otimes$ a trivial spin TQFT = Cartan E$_8$ matrix

In this post, we like to relate the following 3 bosonic TQFTs that can be defined on generic non-spin manifold $M^3$. Given a non-abelian Chern-Simons (CS) TQFT of a gauge group $G$ and the $k$ named ...
wonderich's user avatar
  • 10.3k
4 votes
0 answers
354 views

What is variation of the Chern-Simons functional, and why can it be calculated as follows?

Let $G$ be a Lie group. Assume that we have an Ad-invariant bilinear symmetric form $$\langle-,-\rangle : \mathfrak{g} \times \mathfrak{g} \to \mathbb{C}.$$ Given a smooth manifold $X,$ we let $\...
user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
150 views

Blow-up and Blow-down kirby local moves for non-orientable $3$-manifold

Can anyone explain or give a reference about the Blow-up and Blow-down Kirby local moves for non-orientable $3$-manifolds? Thanks, advance.
Selvakumar A's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
265 views

Action of the mapping class group on separating spheres in a connected sum of aspherical 3-manifolds

Let $M$ be a connected sum of $g$ closed aspherical 3-manifolds $M_1, \ldots, M_g$. [Update: I also assume that all the $M_i$-s are diffeomorphic, i.e. $M$ is a connected sum of copies of the same ...
Ilya Grigoriev's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
299 views

Haken manifolds and characterising sutured manifold hierarchies

In Gabai's paper (Knot Theory and Manifolds Lecture Notes in Mathematics Volume 1144, 1985, pp 14-17 An internal hierarchy for 3-manifolds) he considers sutured manifold decompositions of Haken $3$--...
Don Shanil's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
99 views

Explicit parameterizations of complicated unlinks?

I have a somewhat empirical question which I hope is still welcome here. I would like to know how to write down explicit parameterizations of "complicated unlinks", say with 2 or 10 ...
Sprotte's user avatar
  • 1,065
3 votes
0 answers
67 views

Discreteness of volumes of boundary-parabolic representations

Suppose $M$ is a cusped hyperbolic $3$-manifold of finite volume. Let $\mathfrak{R}_0(M)$ be the space of boundary-parabolic representations $\rho : \pi_1(M) \to \operatorname{PSL}_2(\mathbb C)$. Is ...
Calvin McPhail-Snyder's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
82 views

Integral homology $S^1\times S^2$'s smoothly bounding integral homology $S^1\times B^3$'s

Suppose we are given a compact orientable 3-manifold $M$ which is an integral homology $S^1\times S^2$. Then is there a way to determine whether $M$ bounds a smooth compact orientable 4-manifold which ...
user302934's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
190 views

Can Whitehead manifold admit a properly discontinuous cocompact group action?

Can classical contractible manifolds such as Whitehead manifold admit a properly discontinuous cocompact group action? Here "properly discontinuous" doesn't have to be fixed point free, but ...
Shijie Gu's user avatar
  • 1,936
3 votes
0 answers
58 views

Nonuniqueness of Heegaard surfaces for submanifolds of $S^3$

Let $M^3$ be some compact submanifold of $S^3$ with connected boundary. I am interested in the failure of the analog of Waldhausen's theorem for $M^3$ - namely, I would like examples of such $M$ ...
user101010's user avatar
  • 5,319
3 votes
0 answers
224 views

Standard sutured (?) Heegaard splitting

I am trying to make sense of what is going on in [Cas16] in terms of diagrams. Let me sum up the construction a bit, where $n\leqslant k$ are integers and $b\geqslant 1$ as well. $C_{k,b,n}$ denotes ...
Anthony's user avatar
  • 283