Simple crystallizations of 4-manifolds

Minimal crystallizations of simply connected PL 4-manifolds are very natural objects. Many of their topological features are reflected in their combinatorial structure which, in addition, is preserved under the connected sum operation. We present a minimal crystallization of the standard PL K3 surface. In combination with known results this yields minimal crystallizations of all simply connected PL 4-manifolds of "standard" type, that is, all connected sums of $\mathbb{CP}^2$, $S^2 \times S^2$, and the K3 surface. In particular, we obtain minimal crystallizations of a pair of homeomorphic but non-PL-homeomorphic 4-manifolds. In addition, we give an elementary proof that the minimal 8-vertex crystallization of $\mathbb{CP}^2$ is unique and its associated pseudotriangulation is related to the 9-vertex combinatorial triangulation of $\mathbb{CP}^2$ by the minimum of four edge contractions.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures. Minor update, replacement of Figure 7. To appear in Advances in Geometr

Combinatorial properties of the K3 surface: Simplicial blowups and slicings

The 4-dimensional abstract Kummer variety K^4 with 16 nodes leads to the K3 surface by resolving the 16 singularities. Here we present a simplicial realization of this minimal resolution. Starting with a minimal 16-vertex triangulation of K^4 we resolve its 16 isolated singularities - step by step - by simplicial blowups. As a result we obtain a 17-vertex triangulation of the standard PL K3 surface. A key step is the construction of a triangulated version of the mapping cylinder of the Hopf map from the real projective 3-space onto the 2-sphere with the minimum number of vertices. Moreover we study simplicial Morse functions and the changes of their levels between the critical points. In this way we obtain slicings through the K3 surface of various topological types.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figure

Combinatorial Seifert fibred spaces with transitive cyclic automorphism group

In combinatorial topology we aim to triangulate manifolds such that their topological properties are reflected in the combinatorial structure of their description. Here, we give a combinatorial criterion on when exactly triangulations of 3-manifolds with transitive cyclic symmetry can be generalised to an infinite family of such triangulations with similarly strong combinatorial properties. In particular, we construct triangulations of Seifert fibred spaces with transitive cyclic symmetry where the symmetry preserves the fibres and acts non-trivially on the homology of the spaces. The triangulations include the Brieskorn homology spheres $\Sigma (p,q,r)$, the lens spaces $\operatorname{L} (q,1)$ and, as a limit case, $(\mathbf{S}^2 \times \mathbf{S}^1)^{\# (p-1)(q-1)}$.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures. Minor update. To appear in Israel Journal of Mathematic

The complexity of detecting taut angle structures on triangulations

There are many fundamental algorithmic problems on triangulated 3-manifolds whose complexities are unknown. Here we study the problem of finding a taut angle structure on a 3-manifold triangulation, whose existence has implications for both the geometry and combinatorics of the triangulation. We prove that detecting taut angle structures is NP-complete, but also fixed-parameter tractable in the treewidth of the face pairing graph of the triangulation. These results have deeper implications: the core techniques can serve as a launching point for approaching decision problems such as unknot recognition and prime decomposition of 3-manifolds.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables; v2: minor updates. To appear in SODA 2013: Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithm

Parametrized Complexity of Expansion Height

Deciding whether two simplicial complexes are homotopy equivalent is a fundamental problem in topology, which is famously undecidable. There exists a combinatorial refinement of this concept, called simple-homotopy equivalence: two simplicial complexes are of the same simple-homotopy type if they can be transformed into each other by a sequence of two basic homotopy equivalences, an elementary collapse and its inverse, an elementary expansion. In this article we consider the following related problem: given a 2-dimensional simplicial complex, is there a simple-homotopy equivalence to a 1-dimensional simplicial complex using at most p expansions? We show that the problem, which we call the erasability expansion height, is W[P]-complete in the natural parameter p

3-Manifold Triangulations with Small Treewidth

Motivated by fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) problems in computational topology, we consider the treewidth tw(M) of a compact, connected 3-manifold M, defined to be the minimum treewidth of the face pairing graph of any triangulation T of M. In this setting the relationship between the topology of a 3-manifold and its treewidth is of particular interest. First, as a corollary of work of Jaco and Rubinstein, we prove that for any closed, orientable 3-manifold M the treewidth tw(M) is at most 4g(M)-2, where g(M) denotes Heegaard genus of M. In combination with our earlier work with Wagner, this yields that for non-Haken manifolds the Heegaard genus and the treewidth are within a constant factor. Second, we characterize all 3-manifolds of treewidth one: These are precisely the lens spaces and a single other Seifert fibered space. Furthermore, we show that all remaining orientable Seifert fibered spaces over the 2-sphere or a non-orientable surface have treewidth two. In particular, for every spherical 3-manifold we exhibit a triangulation of treewidth at most two. Our results further validate the parameter of treewidth (and other related parameters such as cutwidth or congestion) to be useful for topological computing, and also shed more light on the scope of existing FPT-algorithms in the field

Admissible Colourings of 3-Manifold Triangulations for Turaev-Viro Type Invariants

Turaev-Viro invariants are amongst the most powerful tools to distinguish 3-manifolds. They are invaluable for mathematical software, but current algorithms to compute them rely on the enumeration of an extremely large set of combinatorial data defined on the triangulation, regardless of the underlying topology of the manifold. In the article, we propose a finer study of these combinatorial data, called admissible colourings, in relation with the cohomology of the manifold. We prove that the set of admissible colourings to be considered is substantially smaller than previously known, by furnishing new upper bounds on its size that are aware of the topology of the manifold. Moreover, we deduce new topology-sensitive enumeration algorithms based on these bounds. The paper provides a theoretical analysis, as well as a detailed experimental study of the approach. We give strong experimental evidence on large manifold censuses that our upper bounds are tighter than the previously known ones, and that our algorithms outperform significantly state of the art implementations to compute Turaev-Viro invariants