65 research outputs found

    Isometries of elliptic 3-manifolds

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    The closed 3-manifolds of constant positive curvature were classified long ago by Seifert and Threlfall. Using well-known information about the orthogonal group O(4), we calculate their full isometry groups Isom(M), determine which elliptic 3-manifolds admit Seifert fiberings that are invariant under all isometries, and verify that the inclusion of Isom(M) to Diff(M) is a bijection on path components

    Imbeddings of free actions on handlebodies

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    Fix a free, orientation-preserving action of a finite group G on a 3-dimensional handlebody V. Whenever G acts freely preserving orientation on a connected 3-manifold X, there is a G-equivariant imbedding of V into X. There are choices of X closed and Seifert-fibered for which the image of V is a handlebody of a Heegaard splitting of X. Provided that the genus of V is at least 2, there are similar choices with X closed and hyperbolic

    Roots of Dehn twists

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    D. Margalit and S. Schleimer found examples of roots of the Dehn twist about a nonseparating curve in a closed orientable surface, that is, homeomorphisms whose nth power is isotopic to the Dehn twist. Our main theorem gives elementary number-theoretic conditions that describe the values of n for which an nth root exists, given the genus of the surface. Among its applications, we show that n must be odd, that the Margalit-Schleimer roots achieve the maximum value of n among the roots for a given genus, and that for a given odd n, nth roots exist for all genera greater than (n-2)(n-1)/2. We also describe all nth roots having n greater than or equal to the genus.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

    Concentration points for Fuchsian groups

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    A limit point p of a discrete group of Mobius transformations acting on S^n is called a concentration point if for any sufficiently small connected open neighborhood U of p, the set of translates of U contains a local basis for the topology of S^n at p. For the case of Fuchsian groups (n = 1), every concentration point is a conical limit point, but even for finitely generated groups not every conical limit point is a concentration point. A slightly weaker concentration condition is given which is satisfied if and only if p is a conical limit point, but not all conical limit points satisfy it. Examples are given that clarify the relations between various concentration conditions.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figure

    The space of Heegaard Splittings

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    For a Heegaard surface F in a closed orientable 3-manifold M, H(M,F) = Diff(M)/Diff(M,F) is the space of Heegaard surfaces equivalent to the Heegaard splitting (M,F). Its path components are the isotopy classes of Heegaard splittings equivalent to (M,F). We describe H(M,F) in terms of Diff(M) and the Goeritz group of (M,F). In particular, for hyperbolic M each path component is a classifying space for the Goeritz group, and when the (Hempel) distance of (M,F) is greater than 3, each path component of H(M,F) is contractible. For splittings of genus 0 or 1, we determine the complete homotopy type (modulo the Smale Conjecture for M in the cases when it is not known).Comment: Minor rewriting as suggested by referee, no change in mathematical content. To appear in J. Reine Angew. Mat

    Fiber-preserving diffeomorphisms and imbeddings

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    Around 1960, R. Palais and J. Cerf proved a fundamental result relating spaces of diffeomorphisms and imbeddings of manifolds: If V is a submanifold of M, then the map from Diff(M) to Imb(V,M) that takes f to its restriction to V is locally trivial. We extend this and related results into the context of fibered manifolds, and fiber-preserving diffeomorphisms and imbeddings. That is, if M fibers over B, with compact fiber, and V is a vertical submanifold of M, then the restriction from the space FDiff(M) of fiber-preserving diffeomorphisms of M to the space of imbeddings of V into M that take fibers to fibers is locally trivial. Also, the map from FDiff(M) to Diff(B) that takes f to the diffeomorphism it induces on B is locally trivial. The proofs adapt Palais' original approach; the main new ingredient is a version of the exponential map, called the aligned exponential, which has better properties with respect to fiber-preserving maps. Versions allowing certain kinds of singular fibers are proven, using equivariant methods. These apply to almost all Seifert-fibered 3-manifolds. As an application, we reprove an unpublished result of F. Raymond and W. Neumann that each component of the space of Seifert fiberings of a Haken 3-manifold is weakly contractible.Comment: 43 pages, LaTeX2

    Middle tunnels by splitting

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    For a genus-1 1-bridge knot in the 3-sphere, that is, a (1,1)-knot, a middle tunnel is a tunnel that is not an upper or lower tunnel for some (1,1)-position. Most torus knots have a middle tunnel, and non-torus-knot examples were obtained by Goda, Hayashi, and Ishihara. We generalize their construction and calculate the slope invariants for the resulting middle tunnels. In particular, we obtain the slope sequence of the original example of Goda, Hayashi, and Ishihara.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figure

    Iterated splitting and the classification of knot tunnels

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    For a genus-1 1-bridge knot in the 3-sphere, that is, a (1,1)-knot, a middle tunnel is a tunnel that is not an upper or lower tunnel for some (1,1)-position. Most torus knots have a middle tunnel, and non-torus-knot examples were obtained by Goda, Hayashi, and Ishihara. In a previous paper, we generalized their construction and calculated the slope invariants for the resulting examples. We give an iterated version of the construction that produces many more examples, and calculate their slope invariants. If one starts with the trivial knot, the iterated constructions produce all the 2-bridge knots, giving a new calculation of the slope invariants of their tunnels. In the final section we compile a list of the known possibilities for the set of tunnels of a given tunnel number 1 knot.Comment: The results of the paper are unchanged. The list of known tunnel phenomena has been enlarged to include new possibilities seen in examples recently found by John Berge, after reading the previous version of the paper. The previous list was presented as a conjecture of all possibilities, but the new list is presented only as list of known phenomena, prompting the change of titl

    Free actions on handlebodies

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    The equivalence (or weak equivalence) classes of orientation-preserving free actions of a finite group G on an orientable 3-dimensional handlebody of genus g can be enumerated in terms of sets of generators of G. They correspond to the equivalence classes of generating n-vectors of elements of G, where n=1+(g-1)/|G|, under Nielsen equivalence (or weak Nielsen equivalence). For abelian and dihedral G, this allows a complete determination of the equivalence and weak equivalence classes of actions for all genera. Additional information is obtained for solvable groups and for the groups PSL(2,3^p) with p prime. For all G, there is only one equivalence class of actions on the genus g handlebody if g is at least 1+r(G)|G|, where r(G) is the maximal length of a chain of subgroups of G. There is a stabilization process that sends an equivalence class of actions to an equivalence class of actions on a higher genus, and some results about its effects are obtained

    The Smale conjecture for Seifert fibered spaces with hyperbolic base orbifold

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    Let M be a closed orientable Seifert fibered 3-manifold with a hyperbolic base 2-orbifold, or equivalently, admitting a geometry modeled on H^2 \times R or the universal cover of SL(2,R). Our main result is that the connected component of the identity map in the diffeomorphism group Diff(M) is either contractible or homotopy equivalent to the circle, according as the center of the fundamental group of M is trivial or infinite cyclic. Apart from the remaining case of non-Haken infranilmanifolds, this completes the homeomorphism classifications of Diff(M) and of the space of Seifert fiberings of M for all compact orientable aspherical 3-manifolds. We also prove that when the base orbifold of M is hyperbolic with underlying manifold the 2-sphere with three cone points, the inclusion from the isometry group Isom(M) to Diff(M) is a homotopy equivalence
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