For a 3-dimensional manifold $M^3$, its complexity $c(M^3)$, introduced by S.Matveev, is the minimal number of vertices of an almost simple spine of $M^3$; in many cases it is equal to the minimal number of tetrahedra in a singular triangulation of $M^3$. An approach to estimating $c(M^3)$ from below for total spaces of torus bundles over $S^1$, based on the study of theta-curves in the fibers, is developed, and pseudominimal special spines for these manifolds are constructed, which we conjecture to be their minimal spines. We also show how to apply some of these ideas to other 3-manifolds.
The triangulation complexity of a compact 3-manifold is the minimal number of tetrahedra in any triangulation of the 3-manifold. We compute the triangulation complexity of all elliptic 3-manifolds and all sol 3-manifolds, to within a universally bounded multiplicative error.
We classify all closed non-orientable P2-irreducible 3-manifolds with complexity up to 7, fixing two mistakes in our previous complexity-up-to-6 classification. We show that there is no such manifold with complexity less than 6, five with complexity 6 (the four flat ones and the filling of the Gieseking manifold, which is of type Sol, and three with complexity 7 (one manifold of type Sol, and the two manifolds of type H2xR with smallest base orbifolds).
We establish two-sided bounds for the complexity of two infinite series of closed orientable 3-dimensional hyperbolic manifolds, the Lobell manifolds and the Fibonacci manifolds.
Virtual $3$-manifolds were introduced by S.V. Matveev in 2009 as natural generalizations of the classical $3$-manifolds. In this paper, we introduce a notion of complexity of a virtual $3$-manifold. We investigate the values of the complexity for virtual 3-manifolds presented by special polyhedra with one or two $2$-components. On the basis of these results, we establish the exact values of the complexity for a wide class of hyperbolic $3$-manifolds with totally geodesic boundary.
There are found exact values of (Matveev) complexity for the 2-parameter family of hyperbolic 3-manifolds with boundary constructed by Paoluzzi and Zimmermann. Moreover, $ε$-invariants for these manifolds are calculated.
We give a summary of known results on Matveev's complexity of compact 3-manifolds. The only relevant new result is the classification of all closed orientable irreducible 3-manifolds of complexity 10.
We classify all closed non-orientable P2-irreducible 3-manifolds having complexity up to 6 and we describe some having complexity 7. We show in particular that there is no such manifold with complexity less than 6, and that those having complexity 6 are precisely the 4 flat non-orientable ones and the filling of the Gieseking manifold, which is of type Sol. The manifolds having complexity 7 we describe are Seifert manifolds of type H2 x S1 and a manifold of type Sol.
We define an invariant, which we call surface-complexity, of closed 3-manifolds by means of Dehn surfaces. The surface-complexity of a manifold is a natural number measuring how much the manifold is complicated. We prove that it fulfils interesting properties: it is subadditive under connected sum and finite-to-one on P2-irreducible manifolds. Moreover, for P2-irreducible manifolds, it equals the minimal number of cubes in a cubulation of the manifold, except for the sphere S3, the projective space RP3 and the lens space L41, which have surface-complexity zero. We will also give estimations of…
After a short summary of known results on surface-complexity of closed 3-manifolds, we will classify all closed orientable 3-manifolds with surface-complexity one.
We describe theoretical backgrounds for a computer program that recognizes all closed orientable 3-manifolds up to complexity 8. The program can treat also not necessarily closed 3-manifolds of bigger complexities, but here some unrecognizable (by the program) 3-manifolds may occur.
We give an upper bound for the Matveev complexity of the whole class of closed connected orientable prime graph manifolds that is sharp for all 14502 graph manifolds of the Recognizer catalogue (available at \texttt{http://matlas.math.csu.ru/?page=search}).
We prove that a closed 4-manifold has shadow-complexity zero if and only if it is a kind of 4-dimensional graph manifold, which decomposes into some particular blocks along embedded copies of S^2 x S^1, plus some complex projective spaces. We deduce a classification of all 4-manifolds with finite fundamental group and shadow-complexity zero.
A filling Dehn sphere $Σ$ in a closed 3-manifold $M$ is a sphere transversely immersed in $M$ that defines a cell decomposition of $M$. Every closed 3-manifold has a filling Dehn sphere. The Montesinos complexity of a $3$-manifold $M$ is defined as the minimal number of triple points among all the filling Dehn spheres of $M$. A sharp upper bound for the Montesinos complexity of the connected sum of two 3-manifolds is given.
We deal with Matveev complexity of compact orientable 3-manifolds represented via Heegaard diagrams. This lead us to the definition of modified Heegaard complexity of Heegaard diagrams and of manifolds. We define a class of manifolds which are generalizations of Dunwoody manifolds, including cyclic branched coverings of two-bridge knots and links, torus knots, some pretzel knots, and some theta-graphs. Using modified Heegaard complexity, we obtain upper bounds for their Matveev complexity, which linearly depend on the order of the covering. Moreover, using homology arguments due to Matveev and…
We describe an algorithm which has enabled us to give a complete list, without repetitions, of all closed oriented irreducible 3-manifolds of complexity up to 9. More interestingly, we have actually been able to give a "name" to each such manifold, by recognizing its canonical decomposition into Seifert fibred spaces and hyperbolic manifolds. The algorithm relies on the extension of Matveev's theory of complexity to the case of manifolds bounded by suitably marked tori, and on the notion of assembling of two such manifolds. We show that every manifold is an assembling of manifolds which cannot…
The idea of computing Matveev complexity by using Heegaard decompositions has been recently developed by two different approaches: the first one for closed 3-manifolds via crystallization theory, yielding the notion of Gem-Matveev complexity; the other one for compact orientable 3-manifolds via generalized Heegaard diagrams, yielding the notion of modified Heegaard complexity. In this paper we extend to the non-orientable case the definition of modified Heegaard complexity and prove that for closed 3-manifolds Gem-Matveev complexity and modified Heegaard complexity coincide. Hence, they turn o…
We present new lower bounds on the complexity of Dehn surgery manifolds of knots, using our recent result on the Cheeger-Gromov rho invariants and triangulations. As an application, we give explicit examples of closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds with fixed first homology for which the gap between the Gromov norm and the complexity is arbitrarily large.
A new lower bound on the complexity of a 3-manifold is given using the Z2-Thurston norm. This bound is shown to be sharp, and the minimal triangulations realising it are characterised using normal surfaces consisting entirely of quadrilateral discs.
In this sequel to earlier papers by three of the authors, we obtain a new bound on the complexity of a closed 3--manifold, as well as a characterisation of manifolds realising our complexity bounds. As an application, we obtain the first infinite families of minimal triangulations of Seifert fibred spaces modelled on Thurston's geometry $\widetilde{\text{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})}.$
We compute for all orientable irreducible geometric 3-manifolds certain complexity functions that approximate from above Matveev's natural complexity, known to be equal to the minimal number of tetrahedra in a triangulation. We can show that the upper bounds on Matveev's complexity implied by our computations are sharp for thousands of manifolds, and we conjecture they are for infinitely many, including all Seifert manifolds. Our computations and estimates apply to all the Dehn fillings of M6_1^3 (the complement of the three-component chain-link, conjectured to be the smallest triply cusped hy…
We study the set of all closed oriented smooth 4-manifolds experimentally, according to a suitable complexity defined using Turaev's shadows. This complexity roughly measures how complicated the 2-skeleton of the 4-manifold is. We characterise here all the closed oriented 4-manifolds that have complexity at most one. They are generated by a certain set of 20 blocks, that are some basic 4-manifolds with boundary consisting of copies of $S^2 \times S^1$, plus connected sums with some copies of $\mathbb{CP}^2$ with either orientation. All the manifolds generated by these blocks are doubles. Many …
Let $M$ be a closed $n$-manifold with nonzero simplicial volume. A central result in systolic geometry from Gromov is that systolic volume of $M$ is related to its simplicial volume. In this short note, we show that systolic volume of hyperbolic manifolds is related to triangulation complexity. The proof is based on Jørgensen and Thurston's theorem of hyperbolic volume.
The graph complexity of a compact 3-manifold is defined as the minimum order among all 4-colored graphs representing it. Exact calculations of graph complexity have been already performed, through tabulations, for closed orientable manifolds (up to graph complexity 32) and for compact orientable 3-manifolds with toric boundary (up to graph complexity 12) and for infinite families of lens spaces. In this paper we extend to graph complexity 14 the computations for orientable manifolds with toric boundary and we give two-sided bounds for the graph complexity of tetrahedral manifolds. As a consequ…
In this paper, we prove that the systolic volume of a closed aspherical 3-manifold is bounded below in terms of complexity. Systolic volume is defined as the optimal constant in a systolic inequality. Babenko showed that the systolic volume is a homotopy invariant. Moreover, Gromov proved that the systolic volume depends on topology of the manifold. More precisely, Gromov proved that the systolic volume is related to some topological invariants measuring complicatedness. In this paper, we work along Gromov's spirit to show that systolic volume of 3-manifolds is related to complexity. The compl…
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.
One can define the complexity of a smooth 4-manifold as the minimal sum of the number of disks, strands and crossings in a Kirby diagram. Martelli proved that the number of homeomorphism classes of complexity less than n grows as $n^2$. In this paper we prove that the number of diffeomorphism classes grows at least as fast as $n^{c\sqrt[3]{n}}$. Along the way we construct complete kirby diagrams for a large family of knot surgery manifolds.
Let M be a 4-manifold which admits a free circle action. We use twisted Alexander polynomials to study the existence of symplectic structures and the minimal complexity of surfaces in M. The results on the existence of symplectic structures summarize previous results of the authors in [FV08a,FV08,FV07]. The results on surfaces of minimal complexity are new.
Within crystallization theory, two interesting PL invariants for $d$-manifolds have been introduced and studied, namely {\it gem-complexity} and {\it regular genus}. In the present paper we prove that, for any closed connected PL $4$-manifold $M$, its gem-complexity $\mathit{k}(M)$ and its regular genus $ \mathcal G(M)$ satisfy: $$\mathit{k}(M) \ \geq \ 3 χ(M) + 10m -6 \ \ \ \text{and} \ \ \ \mathcal G(M) \ \geq \ 2 χ(M) + 5m -4,$$ where $rk(π_1(M))=m.$ These lower bounds enable to strictly improve previously known estimations for regular genus and gem-complexity of product 4-manifolds. Moreov…
Our purpose is to classify acyclic 4-manifolds having shadow complexity zero. In this paper, we focus on simple polyhedra and discuss this problem combinatorially. We consider a shadowed polyhedron $X$ and a simple polyhedron $X_0$ that is obtained by collapsing from $X$. Then we prove that there exists a canonical way to equip internal regions of $X_0$ with gleams so that two 4-manifolds reconstructed from $X_0$ and $X$ are diffeomorphic. We also show that any acyclic simple polyhedron whose singular set is a union of circles can collapse onto a disk. As a consequence of these results, we pro…
We construct an infinite family $\{ C_{n,k}\}_{k=1}^{\infty}$ of corks of Mazur type satisfying $2n\leq \mathrm{sc}^{\mathrm{sp}}(C_{n,k})\leq O(n^{3/2})$ for any positive integer $n$. Furthermore, using these corks, we construct an infinite family $\{(W_{n,k},W'_{n,k})\}_{k=1}^{\infty}$ of exotic pairs of $4$-manifolds with boundary whose special shadow-complexities satisfy the above inequalities. We also discuss exotic pairs with small shadow-complexity.
Scharlemann and Thompson define the width of a 3-manifold M as a notion of complexity based on the topology of M. Their original definition had the property that the adjacency relation on handles gave a linear order on handles, but here we consider a more general definition due to Saito, Scharlemann and Schultens, in which the adjacency relation on handles may give an arbitrary graph. We show that for compact hyperbolic 3-manifolds, this is linearly related to a notion of metric complexity, based on the areas of level sets of Morse functions to graphs, which we call Gromov area.
It has been observed that most manifolds in the Callahan-Hildebrand-Weeks census of cusped hyperbolic $3$-manifolds are obtained by surgery on the minimally twisted 5-chain link. A full classification of the exceptional surgeries on the 5-chain link has recently been completed. In this article, we provide a complete classification of the sets of exceptional slopes and fillings for all cusped hyperbolic surgeries on the minimally twisted 5-chain link, thereby describing the sets of exceptional slopes and fillings for most hyperbolic manifolds of small complexity. The classification produces the…
We show that the problem of deciding whether a knot in a fixed closed orientable 3-dimensional manifold bounds a surface of genus at most $g$ is in co-NP. This answers a question of Agol, Hass, and Thurston in 2002. Previously, this was known for rational homology 3-spheres, by the work of the first author.
We describe an algorithm to subdivide automatically a given set of PL n-manifolds (via coloured triangulations or, equivalently, via crystallizations) into classes whose elements are PL-homeomorphic. The algorithm, implemented in the case n=4, succeeds to solve completely the PL-homeomorphism problem among the catalogue of all closed connected PL 4-manifolds up to gem-complexity 8 (i.e., which admit a coloured triangulation with at most 18 4-simplices). Possible interactions with the (not completely known) relationship among different classification in TOP and DIFF=PL categories are also inves…
A theory of complexity for pairs (M,G) with M an arbitrary closed 3-manifold and G a 3-valent graph in M was introduced by the first two named authors, extending the original notion due to Matveev. The complexity c is known to be always additive under connected sum away from the graphs, but not always under connected sum along (unknotted) arcs of the graphs. In this article we prove the slightly surprising fact that if in M there is a sphere intersecting G transversely at one point, and this point belongs to an edge e of G, then e can be canceled from G without affecting the complexity. Using …
The notion of Gem-Matveev complexity has been introduced within crystallization theory, as a combinatorial method to estimate Matveev's complexity of closed 3-manifolds; it yielded upper bounds for interesting classes of such manifolds. In this paper we extend the definition to the case of non-empty boundary and prove that for each compact irreducible and boundary-irreducible 3-manifold it coincides with the modified Heegaard complexity introduced by Cattabriga, Mulazzani and Vesnin. Moreover, via Gem-Matveev complexity, we obtain an estimation of Matveev's complexity for all Seifert 3-manifol…
We extend Matveev's complexity of 3-manifolds to PL compact manifolds of arbitrary dimension, and we study its properties. The complexity of a manifold is the minimum number of vertices in a simple spine. We study how this quantity changes under the most common topological operations (handle additions, finite coverings, drilling and surgery of spheres, products, connected sums) and its relations with some geometric invariants (Gromov norm, spherical volume, volume entropy, systolic constant). Complexity distinguishes some homotopically equivalent manifolds and is positive on all closed aspheri…
In this paper we find infinitely many Mazur type manifolds and corks with shadow complexity one among the 4-manifolds constructed from contractible special polyhedra having one true vertex by using the notion of Turaev's shadow. We also find such manifolds among 4-manifolds constructed from Bing's house. Our manifolds with shadow complexity one contain the Mazur manifolds $W^{\pm }(l,k)$ which were studied by Akbulut and Kirby.
This is part 2 of a 3-part article where we provide an $O(n^2)$-algorithm to produce a surgery presentation of a 3-manifold induced by a gem with a resolution. In this part we produce a sequence of colored simplicial 2-complexes which are inverses and dual to the sequence of gems produced in the first part. The refinements of the DPL-faces that keep appearing are idempotent: the second refinement of a DPL-face is isomorphic to its first refinement. This fact inhibits exponentiability.
Scharlemann and Thompson define a numerical complexity for a 3-manifold using handle decompositions of the manifold. We show that for compact hyperbolic 3-manifolds this is linearly related to a definition of metric complexity in terms of the areas of level sets of Morse functions.
Turaev's shadow can be seen locally as the Stein factorization of a stable map. In this paper, we define the notion of stable map complexity for a compact orientable 3-manifold bounded by (possibly empty) tori counting, with some weights, the minimal number of singular fibers of codimension 2 of stable maps into the real plane, and prove that this number equals the minimal number of vertices of its branched shadows. In consequence, we give a complete characterization of hyperbolic links in the 3-sphere whose exteriors have stable map complexity 1 in terms of Dehn surgeries, and also give an ob…
It is known since 1954 that every 3-manifold bounds a 4-manifold. Thus, for instance, every 3-manifold has a surgery diagram. There are several proofs of this fact, including constructive proofs, but there has been little attention to the complexity of the 4-manifold produced. Given a 3-manifold M of complexity n, we show how to construct a 4-manifold bounded by M of complexity O(n^2). Here we measure ``complexity'' of a piecewise-linear manifold by the minimum number of n-simplices in a triangulation. It is an open question whether this quadratic bound can be replaced by a linear bound. The p…
Let N be a closed irreducible 3-manifold and assume N is not a graph manifold. We improve for all but finitely many S^1-bundles M over N the adjunction inequality for the minimal complexity of embedded surfaces. This allows us to completely determine the minimal complexity of embedded surfaces in all but finitely many S^1-bundles over a large class of 3-manifolds.
For a closed orientable connected 3-manifold $M$, its complexity $\boldsymbol{T}(M)$ is defined to be the minimal number of tetrahedra in its triangulations. Under the assumption that $M$ is prime (but not necessarily atoroidal), we establish a lower bound for the complexity $\boldsymbol{T}(M)$ in terms of the $\mathbb{Z}_{/2\mathbb{Z}}$-coefficient Thurston norm for $H^1(M;\mathbb{Z}_{/2\mathbb{Z}})$: (1) for any rank-1 subgroup $\{0,φ\} \leqslant H^1(M;\mathbb{Z}_{/2\mathbb{Z}})$, we have $\boldsymbol{T}(M) \geqslant 2+2||φ||$ unless $M$ is a lens space with $\boldsymbol{T}(M)=1+2||φ||$; (2)…
We investigate the notion of complexity for finitely presented groups and the related notion of complexity for three-dimensional manifolds. We give two-sided estimates on the complexity of all the Milnor groups (the finite groups with free action on the three-sphere), as well as for all finite Abelian groups. The ideas developed in the process also allow to construct two-sided bounds for the values of the so-called T-invariant (introduced by Delzant) for the above groups, and to estimate from below the value of T-invariant for an arbitrary finitely presented group. Using the results of this pa…
We consider hyperbolic manifolds with boundary, which admit an ideal triangulation with n ideal triangles and one edge. We prove that the number of these manifolds is $\exp(n\ln(n)+O(n))$.
We find conditions which ensure that the topological complexity of a closed manifold $M$ with abelian fundamental group is nonmaximal, and see through examples that our conditions are sharp. This generalizes results of Costa and Farber on the topological complexity of spaces with small fundamental group. Relaxing the commutativity condition on the fundamental group, we also generalize results of Dranishnikov on the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of the cofibre of the diagonal map $Δ: M \to M \times M$ for nonorientable surfaces by establishing the nonmaximality of this invariant for a large c…
Let M be an arithmetic hyperbolic 3-manifold, such as a Bianchi manifold. We conjecture that there is a basis for the second homology of M, where each basis element is represented by a surface of `low' genus, and give evidence for this. We explain the relationship between this conjecture and the study of torsion homology growth.
The Lusternik-Schnirelmann category and topological complexity are important invariants of manifolds (and more generally, topological spaces). We study the behavior of these invariants under the operation of taking the connected sum of manifolds. We give a complete answer for the LS-categoryof orientable manifolds, $\cat(M\# N)=\max\{\cat M,\cat N\}$. For topological complexity we prove the inequality $\TC (M\# N)\ge\max\{\TC M,\TC N\}$ for simply connected manifolds.
We obtain a sufficient and necessary condition for a finite group to act effectively on a closed flat manifold. Let \ $G=E_{n}(R)$, $EU_{n}(R,Λ),$ $\mathrm{SAut}(F_{n})$ or $\mathrm{SOut}(F_{n}).$ As applications, we prove that when $n\geq 3$ every group action of $G$ on a closed flat manifold $M^{k}$ ($k<n$) by homeomorphisms is trivial. This confirms a conjecture related to Zimmer's program for flat manifolds. Moreover, it is also proved that the group of homeomorphisms of closed flat manifolds are Jordan with Jordan constants depending only on dimensions.
The seven non euclidean geometries of the Thurston's geometrization program are proved to originate naturally from singularization morphisms and versal deformations on euclidean 3-manifolds generated in the frame of the Langlands global program. The Poincare conjecture for a 3-manifold appears as a particular case of this new approach of the Thurston'program.
Let $M$ be a connected compact PL 4-manifold with boundary. In this article, we have given several lower bounds for regular genus and gem-complexity of the manifold $M$. In particular, we have proved that if $M$ is a connected compact $4$-manifold with $h$ boundary components then its gem-complexity $\mathit{k}(M)$ satisfies the following inequalities: $$\mathit{k}(M)\geq 3χ(M)+7m+7h-10 \mbox{ and }\mathit{k}(M)\geq \mathit{k}(\partial M)+3χ(M)+4m+6h-9,$$ and its regular genus $\mathcal{G}(M)$ satisfies the following inequalities: $$\mathcal{G}(M)\geq 2χ(M)+3m+2h-4\mbox{ and }\mathcal{G}(M)\ge…
Let the complexity of a closed manifold M be the minimal number of simplices in a triangulation of M. Such a quantity is clearly submultiplicative with respect to finite coverings, and by taking the infimum on all finite coverings of M normalized by the covering degree we can promote it to a multiplicative invariant, a characteristic number already considered by Milnor and Thurston, which call the "stable complexity" of M. We study here the relation between the stable complexity of M and Gromov's simplicial volume ||M||. It is immediate to show that ||M|| is smaller or equal than the stable co…
