The notion of a layered triangulation of a lens space was defined by Jaco and Rubinstein in earlier work, and, unless the lens space is L(3,1), a layered triangulation with the minimal number of tetrahedra was shown to be unique and termed its "minimal layered triangulation." This paper proves that for each integer n>1, the minimal layered triangulation of the lens space L(2n,1) is its unique minimal triangulation. More generally, the minimal triangulations (and hence the complexity) are determined for an infinite family of lens spaces containing the lens spaces L(2n,1).
A family of one-vertex triangulations of 3-manifolds, layered-triangulations, is defined. Layered-triangulations are first described for handlebodies and then extended to all 3-manifolds via Heegaard splittings. A complete and detailed analysis of layered-triangulations is given in the cases of the solid torus and lens spaces, including the classification of all normal and almost normal surfaces in these triangulations. Minimal layered-triangulations of lens spaces provide a common setting for new proofs of the classification of lens spaces admitting an embedded non orientable surface and the …
We compute the convex hull in $\mathbb{C}^2$ of an arbitrary finite subgroup of ${\mathbb{C}^*}^2$. The combinatorics are dictated by continued fractions in a natural way. This reproves a theorem of Smilansky, with a slightly stronger intermediary step.
This paper uses results on the classification of minimal triangulations of 3-manifolds to produce additional results, using covering spaces. Using previous work on minimal triangulations of lens spaces, it is shown that the lens space $L(4k, 2k-1)$ and the generalised quaternionic space $S^3/Q_{4k}$ have complexity $k,$ where $k\ge 2.$ Moreover, it is shown that their minimal triangulations are unique.
Previous work of the authors with Bus Jaco determined a lower bound on the complexity of cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds and showed that it is attained by the monodromy ideal triangulations of once-punctured torus bundles. This paper exhibits an infinite family of minimal ideal triangulations of Dehn fillings on the link $8^3_9$ that also attain this lower bound on complexity.
We construct a family of PL triangulations of the $d$-dimensional real projective space $\mathbb{R}P^d$ on $Θ((\frac{1+\sqrt{5}}{2})^{d+1})$ vertices for every $d\geq 1$. This improves a construction due to Kühnel on $2^{d+1}-1$ vertices.
We determine all the Q-fundamental surfaces in $(p,1)$-lens spaces and $(p,2)$-lens spaces with respect to natural triangulations with $p$ tetrahedra. For general $(p,q)$-lens spaces, we give an upper bound for elements of vectors which represent Q-fundamental surfaces with no quadrilateral normal disks disjoint from the core circles of lens spaces. We also give some examples of non-orientable closed surfaces which are Q-fundamental surfaces with such quadrilateral normal disks.
In this paper, we explore minimal contact triangulations on contact 3-manifolds. We give many explicit examples of contact triangulations that are close to minimal ones. The main results of this article say that on any closed oriented 3-manifold the number of vertices for minimal contact triangulations for overtwisted contact structures grows at most linearly with respect to the relative $d^3$ invariant. We conjecture that this bound is optimal. We also discuss, in great details, contact triangulations for a certain family of overtwisted contact structures on 3-torus.
Following Matveev, a k-normal surface in a triangulated 3-manifold is a generalization of both normal and (octagonal) almost normal surfaces. Using spines, complexity, and Turaev-Viro invariants of 3-manifolds, we prove the following results: 1) a minimal triangulation of a closed irreducible or a bounded hyperbolic 3-manifold contains no non-trivial k-normal sphere; 2) every triangulation of a closed manifold with at least 2 tetrahedra contains some non-trivial normal surface; 3) every manifold with boundary has only finitely many triangulations without non-trivial normal surfaces. Here, tria…
It is known that an ideal triangulation of a compact $3$-manifold with nonempty boundary is minimal if and only if it contains the minimum number of edges among all ideal triangulations of the manifold. Therefore, any ideal one-edge triangulation (i.e., an ideal singular triangulation with exactly one edge) is minimal. Vesnin, Turaev, and the first author showed that an ideal two-edge triangulation is minimal if no $3$-$2$ Pachner move can be applied. In this paper we show that any of the so-called poor ideal three-edge triangulations is minimal. We exploit this property to construct minimal i…
We give an explicit construction of vertex-transitive tight triangulations of $d$-manifolds for $d\geq 2$. More explicitly, for each $d\geq 2$, we construct two $(d^2+5d+5)$-vertex neighborly triangulated $d$-manifolds whose vertex-links are stacked spheres. The only other non-trivial series of such tight triangulated manifolds currently known is the series of non-simply connected triangulated $d$-manifolds with $2d+3$ vertices constructed by Kühnel. The manifolds we construct are strongly minimal. For $d\geq 3$, they are also tight neighborly as defined by Lutz, Sulanke and Swartz. Like Kühne…
Geometrical spines are defined for 3-manifolds with natural metrics, in particular, for lens manifolds. We show that any spine of L(p,q) close enough to its geometrical spine (i.e., to the cut locus with respect to the standard metric) contains at least E(p,q)-3 vertices, which is exactly the conjectured value for Matveev's complexity of L(p,q); here E(p,q) stands for the sum of the elements of the continued fraction expansion of p/q. As a byproduct, we find the minimal (over all triangulations) rotation distance (the term coined by Sleator, Tarjan, and Thurston) between a triangulation of a r…
With the $[0,1,2]$-family of cyclic triangulations we introduce a rich class of vertex-transitive triangulations of surfaces. In particular, there are infinite series of cyclic $q$-equivelar triangulations of orientable and non-orientable surfaces for every $q=3k$, $k\geq 2$, and every $q=3k+1$, $k\geq 3$. Series of cyclic tessellations of surfaces are derived from these triangulated series.
This article is a continuation of work on construction and calculation various of modifications of invariant based on the use Euclidean metric values attributed to elements of manifold triangulation. We again address the well investigated lens spaces as a standard tool for checking the nontriviality of topological invariants.
Discrete normal surfaces are normal surfaces whose intersection with each tetrahedron of a triangulation has at most one component. They are also natural Poincaré duals to 1-cocycles with $\ZZ/2\ZZ$-coefficients. For a fixed cohomology class in a simplicial poset the average Euler characteristic of the associated discrete normal surfaces only depends on the $f$-vector of the triangulation. As an application we determine the minimum simplicial poset representations, also known as crystallizations, of lens spaces $L(2k,q),$ where $2k=qr+1.$ Higher dimensional analogs of discrete normal surfaces …
We propose a modification of the three-manifold invariant based on the use of Euclidean metric values ascribed to the elements of manifold triangulation. We thus obtain a nontrivial invariant that can, in particular, distinguish non-homeomorphic lens spaces.
The search for universality in random triangulations of manifolds, like those featuring in (Euclidean) Dynamical Triangulations, is central to the random geometry approach to quantum gravity. In case of the 3-sphere, or any other manifold of dimension greater than two for that matter, the pursuit is held back by serious challenges, including the wide open problem of enumerating triangulations. In an attempt to bypass the toughest challenges we identify a restricted family of triangulations, of which the enumeration appears less daunting. In a nutshell, the family consists of triangulated 3-sph…
We give a concrete example of an infinite sequence of $(p_n, q_n)$-lens spaces $L(p_n, q_n)$ with natural triangulations $T(p_n, q_n)$ with $p_n$ taterahedra such that $L(p_n, q_n)$ contains a certain non-orientable closed surface which is fundamental with respect to $T(p_n, q_n)$ and of minimal crosscap number among all closed non-orientable surfaces in $L(p_n, q_n)$ and has $n-2$ parallel sheets of normal disks of a quadrilateral type disjoint from the pair of core circles of $L(p_n, q_n)$. Actually, we can set $p_0=0, q_0=1, p_{k+1}=3p_k+2q_k$ and $q_{k+1}=p_k+q_k$.
We show that if a closed, oriented 3-manifold M is promised to be homeomorphic to a lens space L(n,k) with n and k unknown, then we can compute both n and k in polynomial time in the size of the triangulation of M. The tricky part is the parameter k. The idea of the algorithm is to calculate Reidemeister torsion using numerical analysis over the complex numbers, rather than working directly in a cyclotomic field.
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 triangul…
We construct new topological invariants of three-dimensional manifolds which can, in particular, distinguish homotopy equivalent lens spaces L(7,1) and L(7,2). The invariants are built on the base of a classical (not quantum) solution of pentagon equation, i.e.algebraic relation corresponding to a ``2 tetrahedra to 3 tetrahedra'' local re-building of a manifold triangulation. This solution, found earlier by one of the authors, is expressed in terms of metric characteristics of Euclidean tetrahedra.
For $d \geq 2$, Walkup's class ${\cal K}(d)$ consists of the $d$-dimensional simplicial complexes all whose vertex-links are stacked $(d-1)$-spheres. Kalai showed that for $d \geq 4$, all connected members of ${\cal K}(d)$ are obtained from stacked $d$-spheres by finitely many elementary handle additions. According to a result of Walkup, the face vector of any triangulated 4-manifold $X$ with Euler characteristic $χ$ satisfies $f_1 \geq 5f_0 - {15/2} χ$, with equality only for $X \in {\cal K}(4)$. Kühnel observed that this implies $f_0(f_0 - 11) \geq -15χ$, with equality only for 2-neighborly …
Tight triangulations are exotic, but highly regular objects in combinatorial topology. A triangulation is tight if all its piecewise linear embeddings into a Euclidean space are as convex as allowed by the topology of the underlying manifold. Tight triangulations are conjectured to be strongly minimal, and proven to be so for dimensions $\leq 3$. However, in spite of substantial theoretical results about such triangulations, there are precious few examples. In fact, apart from dimension two, we do not know if there are infinitely many of them in any given dimension. In this paper, we present a…
Let $M$ be a Seifert fiber space with non-abelian fundamental group and admitting a triangulation with $t$ tetrahedra. We show that there is a non-abelian $\text{PSL}(2, \mathbb{F})$ quotient where $|\mathbb F| < c(2^{20t}3^{120t})$ for an absolute constant $c>0$ and use this to show that the lens space recognition problem lies in coNP for Seifert fiber space input. We end with a discussion of our results in the context of distinguishing lens spaces from other $3$--manifolds more generally.
For integers $d \geq 2$ and $ε= 0$ or 1, let $S^{1, d - 1}(ε)$ denote the sphere product $S^{1} \times S^{d - 1}$ if $ε= 0$ and the twisted $S^{d - 1}$ bundle over $S^{1}$ if $ε= 1$. The main results of this paper are: (a) if $d \equiv ε$ (mod 2) then $S^{1, d - 1}(ε)$ has a unique minimal triangulation using $2d + 3$ vertices, and (b) if $d \equiv 1 - ε$ (mod 2) then $S^{1, d - 1}(ε)$ has minimal triangulations (not unique) using $2d + 4$ vertices. The second result confirms a recent conjecture of Lutz. The first result provides the first known infinite family of closed manifolds (other than …
Supose that $Y$ is a lens space with $|H_1(Y; \mathbb{Z})|$ prime, and $Y$ does not contain a genus one fibered knot. We show that $Y$ contains a knot whose exterior is a once-punctured torus bundle if and only if $Y$ is the result of $p/q$-surgery on the trefoil. This partially answers a question posed by Ken Baker in a paper in which he gives a complete classification of genus one fibered knots contained in lens spaces. Combining Baker's classification with Moser's characterization of lens space surgeries on the trefoil, we generate an infinite family of lens spaces which do not contain any …
Motivated by fixed-parameter tractable (FPT) problems in computational topology, we consider the treewidth of a compact, connected 3-manifold $M$ defined by \[ \operatorname{tw}(M) = \min\{\operatorname{tw}(Γ(\mathcal{T})):\mathcal{T}~\text{is a triangulation of }M\}, \] where $Γ(\mathcal{T})$ denotes the dual graph of $\mathcal{T}$. 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 $\operatorname{tw}(M)$ is…
We complete the first step in a two-part program proposed by Baker, Grigsby, and the author to prove that Berge's construction of knots in the three-sphere which admit lens space surgeries is complete. The first step, which we prove here, is to show that a knot in a lens space with a three-sphere surgery has simple (in the sense of rank) knot Floer homology. The second (conjectured) step involves showing that, for a fixed lens space, the only knots with simple Floer homology belong to a simple finite family. Using results of Baker, we provide evidence for the conjectural part of the program by…
The Cabling Conjecture states that surgery on hyperbolic knots in $S^3$ never produces reducible manifolds. In contrast, there do exist hyperbolic knots in some lens spaces with non-prime surgeries. Baker constructed a family of such hyperbolic knots and posed a conjecture that his examples encompass all hyperbolic knots in lens spaces with non-prime surgeries. Using the idea of seiferters we construct a counterexample to this conjecture. In the process of construction, we also derive an obstruction for a small Seifert fibred space to be obtainable by a surgery with a seiferter.
Using computational techniques we tabulate prime knots up to five crossings in the solid torus and the infinite family of lens spaces $L(p,q)$. For these knots we calculate the second and third skein module and establish which prime knots in the solid torus are amphichiral. Most knots are distinguished by the skein modules. For the handful of cases where the skein modules fail to detect inequivalent knots, we calculate and compare the hyperbolic structures of the knot complements. We were unable to resolve a handful of 5-crossing cases for $p\geq 13$.
We exhibit an infinite family of knots in the Poincare homology sphere with tunnel number 2 that have a lens space surgery. Notably, these knots are not doubly primitive and provide counterexamples to a few conjectures. In the appendix, it is shown that hyperbolic knots in the Poincare homology sphere with a lens space surgery has either no symmetries or just a single strong involution.
We describe a family of representations of $π_1(Σ)$ in PU(2,1), where $Σ$ is a hyperbolic Riemann surface with at least one deleted point. This family is obtained by a bending process associated to an ideal triangulation of $Σ$. We give an explicit description of this family by describing a coordinates system in the spirit of shear coordinates on the Teichmüller space. We identify within this family new examples of discrete, faithful and type-preserving representations of $π_1(Σ)$. In turn, we obtain a 1-parameter family of embeddings of the Teichmüller space of $Σ$ in the PU(2,1)-representati…
In arXiv:0707.2151 the authors introduced the theory of local representations of the quantum Teichmüller space $\mathcal{T}^q_S$ ($q$ being a fixed primitive $N$-th root of $(-1)^{N + 1}$) and they studied the behaviour of the intertwining operators in this theory. One of the main results [Theorem 20, arXiv:0707.2151] was the possibility to select one distinguished operator (up to scalar multiplication) for every choice of a surface $S$, ideal triangulations $λ, λ'$ and isomorphic local representations $ρ, ρ'$, requiring that the whole family of operators verifies certain Fusion and Compositio…
We consider aspects of Chern-Simons theory on L(p,q) lens spaces and its relation with matrix models and topological string theory on Calabi-Yau threefolds, searching for possible new large N dualities via geometric transition for non-SU(2) cyclic quotients of the conifold. To this aim we find, on one hand, some novel matrix integral representations of the SU(N) CS partition function in a generic flat background for the whole L(p,q) family and provide a solution for its large N dynamics; on the other, we perform in full detail the construction of a family of would-be dual closed string backgro…
Lens spaces are a family of manifolds that have been a source of many interesting phenomena in topology and differential geometry. Their concrete construction, as quotients of odd-dimensional spheres by a free linear action of a finite cyclic group, allows a deeper analysis of their structure. In this paper, we consider the problem of moments for the distance function between randomly selected pairs of points on homogeneous three-dimensional lens spaces. We give a derivation of a recursion relation for the moments, a formula for the $k$th moment, and a formula for the moment generating functio…
