An L-space is a rational homology 3-sphere with minimal Heegaard Floer homology. We give the first examples of hyperbolic L-spaces with no symmetries. In particular, unlike all previously known L-spaces, these manifolds are not double branched covers of links in S^3. We prove the existence of infinitely many such examples (in several distinct families) using a mix of hyperbolic geometry, Floer theory, and verified computer calculations. Of independent interest is our technique for using interval arithmetic to certify symmetry groups and non-existence of isometries of cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds. In the process, we give examples of 1-cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds of Heegaard genus 3 with two distinct lens space fillings. These are the first examples where multiple Dehn fillings drop the Heegaard genus by more than one, which answers a question of Gordon.
We give a parity condition of a Heegaard diagram to show that it is unstabilized. This improves the result of [5]. As an application, we construct unstabilized Heegaard splittings by Dehn twists on any given Heegaard splitting.
We use an algorithm by Ozsvath and Szabo to find closed formulae for the ranks of the hat version of the Heegaard Floer homology groups for non-zero Dehn surgeries on knots in the 3-sphere. As applications we provide new bounds on the number of distinct ranks of the Heegaard Floer groups a Dehn surgery can have. These in turn give a new lower bound on the rational Dehn surgery genus of a rational homology 3-sphere. We also provide novel obstructions for a knot to be a potential counterexample to the Cabling Conjecture.
We expect manifolds obtained by Dehn filling to inherit properties from the knot manifold. To what extent does that hold true for the Heegaard structure? We study four changes to the Heegaard structure that may occur after filling: (1) Heegaard genus decreases, (2) a new Heegaard surface is created, (3) a non-stabilized Heegaard surface destabilizes, and (4) two or more non-isotopic Heegaard surfaces become isotopic. We survey general results that give quite satisfactory restrictions to phenomena (1) and (2) and, in a parallel thread, give a complete classification of when all four phenomena o…
In 2001, J. Hempel proved the existence of Heegaard splittings of arbitrarily high distance by using a high power of a pseudo-Anosov map as the gluing map between two handlebodies. We show that lower bounds on distance can also be obtained when using a high power of a suitably chosen Dehn twist. In certain cases, we can then determine the exact distance of the resulting splitting. These results can be seen as a natural extension of work by A. Casson and C. Gordon in 1987 regarding strongly irreducible Heegaard splittings.
We use Heegaard splittings to give a criterion for a tunnel number one knot manifold to be non-fibered and to have large cyclic covers. We also show that such a knot manifold (satisfying the criterion) admits infinitely many virtually Haken Dehn fillings. Using a computer, we apply this criterion to the 2 generator, non-fibered knot manifolds in the cusped Snappea census. For each such manifold M, we compute a number c(M), such that, for any n>c(M), the n-fold cyclic cover of M is large.
Let K' be a hyperbolic knot in S^3 and suppose that some Dehn surgery on K' with distance at least 3 from the meridian yields a 3-manifold M of Heegaard genus 2. We show that if M does not contain an embedded Dyck's surface (the closed non-orientable surface of Euler characteristic -1), then the knot dual to the surgery is either 0-bridge or 1-bridge with respect to a genus 2 Heegaard splitting of M. In the case M does contain an embedded Dyck's surface, we obtain similar results. As a corollary, if M does not contain an incompressible genus 2 surface, then the tunnel number of K' is at most 2…
We show there exists a linear function w: N->N with the following property. Let K be a hyperbolic knot in a hyperbolic 3-manifold M admitting a non-longitudinal S^3 surgery. If K is put into thin position with respect to a strongly irreducible, genus g Heegaard splitting of M then K intersects a thick level at most 2w(g) times. Typically, this shows that the bridge number of K with respect to this Heegaard splitting is at most w(g), and the tunnel number of K is at most w(g) + g-1.
We provide a new obstruction for a rational homology 3-sphere to arise by Dehn surgery on a given knot in the 3-sphere. The obstruction takes the form of an inequality involving the genus of the knot, the surgery coefficient, and a count of L-structures on the 3-manifold, that is spin-c structures with the simplest possible associated Heegaard Floer group. Applications include an obstruction for two framed knots to yield the same 3-manifold, an obstruction that is particularly effective when working with families of framed knots. We introduce the rational and integral Dehn surgery genera for a…
We write down an explicit formula for the $+$ version of the Heegaard Floer homology (as an absolutely graded vector space over an arbitrary field) of the results of Dehn surgery on a knot $K$ in $S^3$ in terms of homological data derived from $CFK^{\infty}(K)$. This allows us to prove some results about Dehn surgery on knots in $S^3$. In particular, we show that for a fixed manifold there are only finitely many alternating knots that can produce it by surgery. This is an improvement on a recent result by Lackenby and Purcell. We also derive a lower bound on the genus of knots depending on the…
We prove an explicit, quantitative criterion that ensures the Heegaard surfaces in Dehn fillings behave "as expected." Given a cusped hyperbolic manifold X, and a Dehn filling whose meridian and longitude curves are longer than 2pi(2g-1), we show that every genus g Heegaard splitting of the filled manifold is isotopic to a splitting of the original manifold X. The analogous statement holds for fillings of multiple boundary tori. This gives an effective version of a theorem of Moriah-Rubinstein and Rieck-Sedgwick.
We derive a new exact sequence in the hat-version of Heegaard Floer homology. As a consequence we see a functorial connection between the invariant of Legendrian knots and the contact element. As an application we derive two vanishing results of the contact element making it possible to easily read off its vanishing out of a surgery presentation in suitable situations.
We establish a relationship between Heegaard Floer homology and the fractional Dehn twist coefficient of surface automorphisms. Specifically, we show that the rank of the Heegaard Floer homology of a 3-manifold bounds the absolute value of the fractional Dehn twist coefficient of the monodromy of any of its open book decompositions with connected binding. We prove this by showing that the rank of Floer homology gives bounds for the number of boundary parallel right or left Dehn twists necessary to add to a surface automorphism to guarantee that the associated contact manifold is tight or overt…
We describe an example of a closed orientable 3-manifold with distinct distance three genus two Heegaard splittings. This demonstrates that the constructions of alternate genus two Heegaard splittings of closed orientable 3-manifolds described by Rubinstein and Scharlemann in their 1998 paper Genus Two Heegaard Splittings of Orientable 3-Manifolds, does not yield all alternate genus two splittings and must be augmented.
We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a simple closed curve on the boundary of a genus two handlebody to decompose the handlebody into (torus with one boundary component times [0,1]. We use this condition to decide whether a simple closed curve on a genus two Heegaard surface is a GOF-knot (genus one fibered knot) which induces the Heegaard splitting. By using this, we determine the number and the positions with respect to the Heegaard splittings of GOF-knots in the 3-manifolds with reducible genus two Heegaard splittings. This is another proof of results of Morimoto and Baker.
It is well-known that Heegaard genus is additive under connected sum of 3-manifolds. We show that Heegaard genus of contact 3-manifolds is not necessarily additive under contact connected sum. We also prove some basic properties of the contact genus (a.k.a. open book genus) of 3-manifolds, and compute this invariant for some 3-manifolds.
We give an algorithmic proof of the theorem that a closed orientable irreducible and atoroidal 3-manifold has only finitely many Heegaard splittings in each genus, up to isotopy. The proof gives an algorithm to determine the Heegaard genus of an atoroidal 3-manifold.
We construct infinitely many manifolds admitting both strongly irreducible and weakly reducible minimal genus Heegaard splittings. Both closed manifolds and manifolds with boundary tori are constructed.
We prove that if a fibered knot $K$ with genus greater than one in a three-manifold $M$ has a sufficiently complicated monodromy, then $K$ induces a minimal genus Heegaard splitting $P$ that is unique up to isotopy, and small genus Heegaard splittings of $M$ are stabilizations of $P$. We provide a complexity bound in terms of the Heegaard genus of $M$. We also provide global complexity bounds for fibered knots in the three-sphere and lens spaces.
We prove a rigidity theorem for degree one maps between small 3-manifolds using Heegaard genus, and provide some applications and connections to Heegaard genus and Dehn surgery problems.
It is known that there are surface bundles of arbitrarily high genus which have genus two Heegaard splittings. The simplest examples are Seifert fibered spaces with the sphere as a base space, three exceptional fibers and which allow horizontal surfaces. We characterize the monodromy maps of all surface bundles with genus two Heegaard splittings and show that each is the result of integral Dehn surgery in one of these Seifert fibered spaces along loops where the Heegaard surface intersects a horizontal surface. (This type of surgery preserves both the bundle structure and the Heegaard splittin…
Casson and Gordon gave the rectangle condition for strong irreducibility of Heegaard splittings [1]. We give a parity condition for irreducibility of Heegaard splittings of irreducible manifolds. As an application, we give examples of non-stabilized Heegaard splittings by doing a single Dehn twist.
An updated proof of a 1933 theorem of Goeritz, exhibiting a finite set of generators for the group of automorphisms of the 3-sphere that preserve a genus two Heegaard splitting. The group is analyzed via its action on a certain connected 2-complex. (The analogous problem for higher genus Heegaard splittings appears to remain unresolved.)
We show that {\sc Heegaard Genus $\leq g$}, the problem of deciding whether a triangulated 3-manifold admits a Heegaard splitting of genus less than or equal to $g$, is NP-hard. The result follows from a quadratic time reduction of the NP-complete problem {\sc CNF-SAT} to {\sc Heegaard Genus $\leq g$}.
Using Seifert fibered three-manifold examples of Boileau and Zieschang, we demonstrate that the Reshetikhin-Turaev quantum invariants may be used to provide a sharp lower bound on the Heegaard genus which is strictly larger than the rank of the fundamental group.
Non-isotopic Heegaard splittings of non-minimal genus were known previously only for very special 3-manifolds. We show in this paper that they are in fact a wide spread phenomenon in 3-manifold theory: We exhibit a large class of knots and manifolds obtained by Dehn surgery on these knots which admit such splittings. Many of the manifolds have irreducible Heegaard splittings of arbitrary large genus. All these splittings are horizontal and are isotopic, after one stabilization, to a multiple stabilization of certain canonical low genus vertical Heegaard splittings.
Let M be a 3-manifold admitting a strongly irreducible Heegaard surface S and f:M \to M an involution. We construct an invariant Heegaard surface for M of genus at most 8 g(S) - 7. As a consequence, given a (possibly branched) double cover π:M \to N we obtain the following bound on the Heegaard genus of N: g(N) \leq 4g(S) - 3. We also get a bound on the complexity of the branch set in terms of g(S). If we assume that M is non-Haken, by Casson and Gordon we may replace g(S) by g(M) in all the statements above.
Let $M$ be a compact orientable irreducible 3-manifold and $H$ be an unstabilized genus three Heegaard splitting of $M$. In this article, we will define a simplicial complex of weak reducing pairs for $H$ and find several properties of this complex. Using this method, we will prove that an unstabilized Heegaard splitting of genus three is critical in a certain condition. In addition, we will show that the standard genus three Heegaard splitting for $T^3$ and the induced Heegaard splitting of the three component chain exterior by a certain tunnel system are critical as examples of the main theo…
Following an example discovered by John Berge, we show that there is a 4-component link L \subset (S^1 x S^2)#(S^1 x S^2) so that, generically, the result of Dehn surgery on L is a 3-manifold with two inequivalent genus 2 Heegaard splittings, and each of these Heegaard splittings is of Hempel distance 3.
Let $M$ be an orientable, irreducible $3$-manifold admitting a weakly reducible genus three Heegaard splitting as a minimal genus Heegaard splitting. In this article, we prove that if $[f]$, $[g]\in Mod(M)$ give the same correspondence between two isotopy classes of generalized Heegaard splittings consisting of two Heegaard splittings of genus two, say $[\mathbf{H}]\to[\mathbf{H}']$, then there exists a representative $h$ of the difference $[h]=[g]\cdot[f]^{-1}$ such that (i) $h$ preserves a suitably chosen embedding of the Heegaard surface $F'$ obtained by amalgamation from $\mathbf{H}'$ whic…
Let M be a closed orientable 3-manifold with a negatively curved Riemannian metric. Let {M_i} be a collection of finite regular covers with degree d_i. (1) If the Heegaard genus of M_i grows more slowly than the square root of d_i, then M_i has positive first Betti number for all sufficiently large i. (2) The strong Heegaard genus of M_i cannot grow more slowly than the square root of d_i. (3) If the Heegaard genus of M_i grows more slowly than the fourth root of d_i, then M_i fibres over the circle for all sufficiently large i. These results provide supporting evidence for the Heegaard gradie…
The mapping class group of a Heegaard splitting is the group of connected components in the set of automorphisms of the ambient manifold that map the Heegaard surface onto itself. For the genus three Heegaard splitting of the 3-torus, we find an eight element generating set for this group. Six of these generators induce generating elements of the mapping class group of the 3-torus and the remaining two are isotopy trivial in the 3-torus.
Given a 3-manifold M containing an incompressible surface Q, we obtain an inequality relating the Heegaard genus of M and the Heegaard genera of the components of M - Q. Here the sum of the genera of the components of M - Q is bounded above by a linear expression in terms of the genus of M, the Euler characteristic of Q and the number of parallelism classes of essential annuli for which representatives can be simultaneously imbedded in the components of M - Q.
Let ${\mathcal H}$ be the group of isotopy classes of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of $S^3$ that preserve a Heegaard splitting of genus two. In this paper, we use a tree in the barycentric subdivision of the disk complex of a handlebody of the splitting to obtain a finite presentation of ${\mathcal H}$.
A knot K is called a 1-genus 1-bridge knot in a 3-manifold M if (M,K) has a Heegaard splitting (V_1,t_1)\cup (V_2,t_2) where V_i is a solid torus and t_i is a boundary parallel arc properly embedded in V_i. If the exterior of a knot has a genus 2 Heegaard splitting, we say that the knot has an unknotting tunnel. Naturally the exterior of a 1-genus 1-bridge knot K allows a genus 2 Heegaard splitting, i.e., K has an unknotting tunnel. But, in general, there are unknotting tunnels which are not derived form this procedure. Some of them may be levelled with the torus \partial V_1=\partial V_2, who…
The Goeritz group of the standard genus-g Heegaard splitting of the three sphere, $G_g$, acts on the space of isotopy classes of reducing spheres for this Heegaard splitting. Scharlemann MR2199366 (2007c:57020) uses this action to prove that $G_2$ is finitely generated. In this article, we give an algorithm to construct any reducing sphere from a standard reducing sphere for a genus-2 Heegaard splitting of the $S^3$. Using this we give an alternate proof of the finite generation of $G_2$ assuming the finite generation of the stabilizer of the standard reducing sphere.
We study trivalent graphs in $S^{3}$ whose closed complement is a genus two handlebody. We show that such a graph, when put in thin position, has a simple (i. e. non-loop) level edge.
Some conjectures about Heegaard genera and ranks of fundamental groups of 3-manifolds are formulated, and it is shown that they imply new statements about hyperbolic volume.
Let M and M' be simple 3-manifolds, each with connected boundary of genus at least two. Suppose that M and M' are glued via a homeomorphism between their boundaries. Then we show that, provided the gluing homeomorphism is `sufficiently complicated', the Heegaard genus of the amalgamated manifold is completely determined by the Heegaard genus of M and M' and the genus of their common boundary. Here, a homeomorphism is `sufficiently complicated' if it is the composition of a homeomorphism from the boundary of M to some surface S, followed by a sufficiently high power of a pseudo-Anosov on S, fol…
If a 3--manifold $Y$ contains a non-separating sphere, then some twisted Heegaard Floer homology of $Y$ is zero. This simple fact allows us to prove several results about Dehn surgery on knots in such manifolds. Similar results have been proved for knots in $L$--spaces.
Building off ideas developed by Agol, we construct a family of hyperbolic knots $K_n$ whose complements contain no closed incompressible surfaces and have Heegaard genus exactly $n$. These are the first known examples of small knots having large Heegaard genus. Using work of Futer and Purcell, we are able to bound the crossing number for each $K_n$ in terms of $n$.
The manifold which admits a genus-$2$ reducible Heegaard splitting is one of the $3$-sphere, $\mathbb{S}^2 \times \mathbb{S}^1$, lens spaces and their connected sums. For each of those manifolds except most lens spaces, the mapping class group of the genus-$2$ splitting was shown to be finitely presented. In this work, we study the remaining generic lens spaces, and show that the mapping class group of the genus-$2$ Heegaard splitting is finitely presented for any lens space by giving its explicit presentation. As an application, we show that the fundamental groups of the spaces of the genus-$…
We provide an algorithm to determine the Heegaard genus of simple 3-manifolds with non-empty boundary. More generally, we supply an algorithm to determine (up to ambient isotopy) all the Heegaard splittings of any given genus for the manifold. As a consequence, the tunnel number of a hyperbolic link is algorithmically computable. Our techniques rely on Rubinstein's work on almost normal surfaces, and also a new structure called a partially flat angled ideal triangulation.
We survey known (and unknown) results about the behavior of Heegaard genus of 3-manifolds constructed via various gluings. The constructions we consider are (1) gluing together two 3-manifolds with incompressible boundary, (2) gluing together the boundary components of surface times I, and (3) gluing a handlebody to the boundary of a 3-manifold. We detail those cases in which it is known when the Heegaard genus is less than what is expected after gluing.
Let (V,W;F) be a weakly reducible, unstabilized, genus three Heegaard splitting in an orientable, irreducible 3-manifold M. In this article, we prove that either the disk complex D(F) is contractible or F is critical. Hence, the topological index of F is two if F is topologically minimal.
A knot K in a closed connected orientable 3-manifold M is called a 1-genus 1-bridge knot if (M,K) has a splitting into two pairs of a solid torus V_i (i=1,2) and a boundary parallel arc in it. The splitting induces a genus two Heegaard splitting of the exterior of K naturally, i.e., K has an unknotting tunnel. However the converse is not true in general. Then we study such general case in this paper. One of the conclusions is that the unknotting tunnel may be levelled with the torus \partial V_1=\partial V_2.
We give a summary of known results on the maximal distances between Dehn fillings on a hyperbolic 3-manifold that yield 3-manifolds containing a surface of non-negative Euler characteristic that is either essential or Heegaard.
Using the theory of hyperbolic manifolds with totally geodesic boundary, we provide for every integer n greater than 1 a class of such manifolds all having Matveev complexity equal to n and Heegaard genus equal to n+1. All the elements of this class have a single boundary component of genus n, and the numbers of distinct members of the class grows at least exponentially with n.
We define several concordance invariants using knot Floer homology which give improvements over known slice genus and clasp number bounds from Heegaard Floer homology. We also prove that the involutive correction terms of Hendricks and Manolescu give both a slice genus and a clasp number bound.
We introduce a general notion of "genericity" for countable subsets of a space with Borel measure, and apply it to the set of vertices in the curve complex of a surface S, interpreted as subset of the space of projective measured laminations in S, equipped with its natural Lebesgue measure. We prove that, for any 3-manifold M, the set of curves c on a Heegaard surface S in M, such that every non-trivial Dehn twist at c yields a Heegaard splitting of high distance, is generic in the set of all essential simple closed curves on S. Our definition of "genericity" is different and more intrinsic th…
In this note we give presentations of all finite subgroups of the mapping class group of a closed surface of genus 2 by the Humphries generators up to conjugacy.
Kevin Hartshorn showed that if a three-dimensional manifold $M$ admits a Heegaard surface $Σ$ with Hempel distance $d$ then every incompressible surface in $M$ has genus at least $\frac{d}{2}$. Scharlemann-Tomova generalized this, proving that in such a manifold, every other Heegaard surface for $M$ of genus $g' < \frac{d}{2}$ is a stabilization of $Σ$. In the present paper, we show that Hartshorn's bound is sharp and Scharlemann-Tomova's bound is very close to sharp. In particular, for every pair of integers $g \geq 2, d \geq 2$, we construct a three-manifold $M$ with a genus $g$, distance $d…
When can surgery on a null-homologous knot K in a rational homology sphere produce a non-separating sphere? We use Heegaard Floer homology to give sufficient conditions for K to be unknotted. We also discuss some applications to homology cobordism, concordance, and Mazur manifolds.
It is shown that for given positive integers g and b, there is a number C(g,b), such that any orientable compact irreducible 3-manifold of Heegaard genus g has at most C(g,b) disjoint, nonparallel incompressible surfaces with first Betti number b_1 < b.
This paper explores connections between Heegaard genus, minimal surfaces, and pseudo-Anosov monodromies. Fixing a pseudo-Anosov map phi and an integer n, let M_n be the 3-manifold fibered over S^1 with monodromy phi^n. JH Rubinstein showed that for a large enough n every minimal surface of genus at most h in M_n is homotopic into a fiber; as a consequence Rubinstein concludes that every Heegaard surface of genus at most h for M_n is standard, that is, obtained by tubing together two fibers. We prove this result and also discuss related results of Lackenby and Souto.
