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.
This is a survey on upper and lower bounds for finite group actions on bounded surfaces, 3-dimensional handlebodies and closed handles, handlebodies in arbitrary dimensions and finite graphs (the common feature of these objects is that all have free fundamental group).
We examine free orientation-reversing group actions on orientable handlebodies, and free actions on nonorientable handlebodies. A classification theorem is obtained, giving the equivalence classes and weak equivalence classes of free actions in terms of algebraic invariants that involve Nielsen equivalence. This is applied to describe the sets of free actions in various cases, including a complete classification for many (and conjecturally all) cases above the minimum genus. For abelian groups, the free actions are classified for all genera.
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.
In this paper we consider all orientation-preserving $\mathbb{Z}_{4}$-actions on $3$-dimensional handlebodies $V_g$ of genus $g>0$. We study the graph of groups $(Γ($v$),\mathbf{G(v)})$, which determines a handlebody orbifold $V(Γ($v$),{\mathbf{G(v)}})\simeq{V_g}/\mathbb{Z}_{4}$. This algebraic characterization is used to enumerate the total number of $\mathbb{Z}_{4}$ group actions on such handlebodies, up to equivalence.
It is known that the order of a finite group of diffeomorphisms of a 3-dimensional handlebody of genus g > 1 is bounded by the linear polynomial 12(g-1), and that the order of a finite group of diffeomorphisms of a 4-dimensional handlebody (or equivalently, of its boundary 3-manifold), faithful on the fundamental group, is bounded by a quadratic polynomial in g (but not by a linear one). In the present paper we prove a generalization for handlebodies of arbitrary dimension d, uniformizing handlebodies by Schottky groups and considering finite groups of isometries of such handlebodies. We prove…
We consider finite group-actions on closed, orientable and nonorientable 3-manifolds M which preserve the two handlebodies of a Heegaard splitting of M of some genus g > 1 (maybe interchanging the two handlebodies). The maximal possible order of a finite group-action on a handlebody of genus g>1 is 12(g-1) in the orientation-preserving case and 24(g-1) in general, and the maximal order of a finite group preserving the Heegaard surface of a Heegaard splitting of genus g is 48(g-1). This defines a hierarchy for finite group-actions on 3-manifolds which we discuss in the present paper; we present…
In this paper we study the kernel of the homomorphism $B_{g,n} \to B_n$ of the braid group $B_{g,n}$ in the handlebody $\mathcal{H}_g$ to the braid group $B_n$. We prove that this kernel is a semi-direct product of free groups. Also, we introduce an algebra $H_{g,n}(q)$, which is some analog of the Hecke algebra $H_n(q)$, constructed by the braid group $B_n$.
Let $Σ_g (g>1)$ be a closed surface embedded in $S^3$. If a group $G$ can acts on the pair $(S^3, Σ_g)$, then we call such a group action on $Σ_g$ extendable over $S^3$. In this paper we show that the maximum order of extendable cyclic group actions is $4g+4$ when $g$ is even and $4g-4$ when $g$ is odd; the maximum order of extendable abelian group actions is $4g+4$. We also give results of similar questions about extendable group actions over handlebodies.
We show that for any n > 3 there exists an equivalence functor from the category of n-fold connected simple coverings of B^3 x [0, 1] branched over ribbon surface tangles up to certain local ribbon moves, to the category Chb^{3+1} of orientable relative 4-dimensional 2-handlebody cobordisms up to 2-deformations. As a consequence, we obtain an equivalence theorem for simple coverings of S^3 branched over links, which provides a complete solution to the long-standing Fox-Montesinos covering moves problem. This last result generalizes to coverings of any degree results by the second author and Ap…
For two generator free Fuchsian groups, the quotient three manifold is a genus two solid handlebody and its boundary is a hyperelliptic Riemann surface. The convex core is also a hyperelliptic Riemann surface. We find the Weierstrass points of both of these surfaces. We then generalize the notion of a hyperelliptic Riemann surface to a ``hyperelliptic'' three manifold. We show that the handlebody has a unique order two isometry fixing six unique geodesic line segments, which we call the {\sl Weierstrass lines} of the handlebody. The Weierstrass lines are, of course, the analogue of the Weierst…
We consider finite group-actions on closed, orientable and nonorientable 3-manifolds; such a finite group-action leaves invariant the two handlebodies of a Heegaard splitting of M of some genus g. The maximal possible order of a finite group-action of an orientable or nonorientable handlebody of genus g > 1 is 24(g-1), and in the present paper we characterize the 3-manifolds M and groups G for which the maximal possible order |G| = 24(g-1) is obtained, for some G-invariant Heegaard splitting of genus g > 1. If M is reducible then it is obtained by doubling an action of maximal possible order 2…
We determine the structure of the circular handle decompositions of the family of free genus one knots. Namely, if k is a free genus one knot, then the handle number h(k)= 0, 1 or 2, and, if k is not fibered (that is, if h(k)>0), then k is almost fibered. For this, we develop practical techniques to construct circular handle decompositions of knots with free Seifert surfaces in the 3-sphere (and compute handle numbers of many knots), and, also, we characterize the free genus one knots with more than one Seifert surface. These results are obtained through analysis of spines of surfaces on handl…
The goal of this paper is to construct distinct trisections of the same genus on a fixed 4-manifold. For every $k \geq 2$, we construct $2^{k}-1$ non-diffeomorphic $(3k,k)$-trisections on infinitely many 4-manifolds. Here, the manifolds are spun Seifert fiber spaces and the trisections come from Meier's spun trisections. The technique used to distinguish the trisections parallels an established technique for distinguishing Heegaard splittings. In particular, we show that the Nielsen classes of the generators of the fundamental group, obtained from spines of the 4-dimensional 1-handlebodies of …
A handlebody-link is a disjoint union of embeddings of handlebodies in $S^3$ and an HL-homotopy is an equivalence relation on handlebody-links generated by self-crossing changes. The second author and Ryo Nikkuni classified the set of HL-homotopy classes of 2-component handlebody-links completely using the linking numbers for handlebody-links. In this paper, we construct a family of invariants for HL-homotopy classes of general handlebody-links, by using Milnor's link-homotopy invariants. Moreover, we give a bijection between the set of HL-homotopy classes of almost trivial handlebody-links an…
A 3-manifold is Haken if it contains a topologically essential surface. The Virtual Haken Conjecture posits that every irreducible 3-manifold with infinite fundamental group has a finite cover which is Haken. In this paper, we study random 3-manifolds and their finite covers in an attempt to shed light on this difficult question. In particular, we consider random Heegaard splittings by gluing two handlebodies by the result of a random walk in the mapping class group of a surface. For this model of random 3-manifold, we are able to compute the probabilities that the resulting manifolds have fin…
In this paper we study compacta Y that are resolvable by a free p-adic action on a compactum of a lower dimension and focus on compacta Y whose cohomological dimension with respect to the group Z[1/p] is 1.
Relations between parameter rigidity of locally free Lie group actions on closed manifolds and the 1st leafwise cohomology of the orbit foliations are discussed. Some computational results of the leafwise cohomology are included.
The present work introduces new perspectives in order to extend finite group actions from surfaces to 3-manifolds. We consider the Schur multiplier associated to a finite group $G$ in terms of principal $G$-bordisms in dimension two, called $G$-cobordisms. We are interested in the question of when a free action of a finite group on a closed oriented surface extends to a non-necessarily free action on a 3-manifold. We show the answer to this question is affirmative for abelian, dihedral, symmetric and alternating groups. As an application of our methods, we show that every non-necessarily free …
We give a congruence for the quantum invariant of a Z_p-quotient of a 3$-manifold with a Z_{p^2} action. We show the congruence does not hold for quotients of 3--manifolds with a Z_{5}xZ_{5} action.
This is a note of the author's lectures at "Advanced courses in Foliation" in the research program "Foliation", which was held at the Centre de Recerca Mathematica in the May of 2010. In this note, we discuss about the relationship between deformation of actions of Lie groups and the leafwise cohomology of the orbit foliation.
Recall that a group is called large if it has a finite index subgroup which surjects onto a non-abelian free group. By work of Agol and Cooper-Long-Reid, most 3-manifold groups are large; in particular, the fundamental groups of hyperbolic 3-manifolds are large. In previous work, the first author gave examples of closed, hyperbolic 3-manifolds with arbitrarily large first homology rank but whose fundamental groups do not surject onto a non-abelian free group. We call a group very large if it surjects onto a non-abelian free group. In this paper, we consider the question of whether the groups o…
In the paper of Montgomery, D. and Yang, C.T. [5], they discuss the de-suspension of smooth free actions of S1 on (2n+1)-dimensional homotopy spheres. In this paper we discuss the de-suspension of smooth free actions of S3 on (4n + 3)-dimensional homotopy spheres.
We classify smooth locally free actions of the real affine group on closed orientable three-dimensional manifolds up to smooth conjugacy. As a corollary, there exists a non-homogeneous action when the manifold is the unit tangent bundle of a closed surface with a hyperbolic metric.
We prove that closed symplectic four-manifolds do not admit any smooth free circle actions with contractible orbits, without assuming that the actions preserve the symplectic forms. In higher dimensions such actions by symplectomorphisms do exist, and we give explicit examples based on a construction of Fernandez, Gray and Morgan. We also prove that the only compact complex surfaces admitting free circle actions with contractible orbits are primary Hopf surfaces.
In this paper, we study the action of $\text{Homeo}_0(M)$, the identity component of the group of homeomorphisms of an $n$-dimensional manifold $M$ with an $\mathbb{F}_p$-free action, on another manifold $N$ of dimension $n+k<2n$. We prove that if $M$ is not an $\mathbb{F}_p$-homology sphere, then $N\cong M\times K$ for a homology manifold $K$ such that the action of $\text{Homeo}_0(M)$ on $M$ is standard and on $K$ is trivial. In particular, for $M=S^n$ a sphere, any nontrivial action is a generalization of the "coning-off" construction.
We show that recent results of Friedl-Vidussi and Chen imply that a symplectic manifold admits a fixed point free circle action if and only if it admits a symplectic circle action and we give a complete description of the symplectic cone in this case. This then completes the characterisation of symplectic 4-manifolds that admit non-trivial circle actions.
Let $M$ be a compact oriented simply-connected manifold of dimension at least 8. Assume $M$ is equipped with a torsion-free semi-free circle action with isolated fixed points. We prove $M$ has a perfect invariant Morse-Smale function. The major ingredient in the proof is a new cancellation theorem for the invariant Morse theory.
The main results of this paper describes a formula for the Seiberg-Witten invariant of a 4-manifold which admits a nontrivial free S^1-action. We use this theorem to produce a nonsymplectic 4-manifold with a free circle action whose orbit space fibers over S^1. We also describe a 3-manifold which is not the orbit space of any symplectic 4-manifold with a free circle action. A corollary of the main theorem is a formula for the 3-dimensional Seiberg-Witten invariants of the total space of a circle bundle over a surface.
We use the notion of fixity for representations of finite groups to construct free and smooth actions on products of spheres. In particular we show that a finite p-group (for p>3) will act freely and smoothly on a product of two spheres if and only if it does not contain a rank 3 elementary abelian subgroup. We show that if G is a finite subgroup of U(n), acting freely on U(n)/U(k) for some k>0 and if (|G|,(n-1)!)=1, then the action propagates to a free and smooth action on a product of n-k spheres. A number of explicit examples are discussed.
This article announces joint work with Frank Connolly and Jim Davis. We generalize our classification of pseudo-free involutions on the n-torus, by studying the action of the associated infinite group with torsion in the universal cover. Included is a non-Riemannian example obtained from the restriction of the action of a Coxeter group on a CAT(0) manifold.
We use methods from the cohomology of groups to describe the finite groups which can act freely and homologically trivially on closed 3-manifolds which are rational homology spheres.
Let $p$ be an odd regular prime, and let $G_p$ denote the extraspecial $p$--group of order $p^{3}$ and exponent $p$. We show that $G_p$ acts freely and smoothly on $S^{2p-1} \times S^{2p-1}$. For $p=3$ we explicitly construct a free smooth action of a Lie group $\widetilde{G}_3$ containing $G_3$ on $S^{5} \times S^{5}$. In addition, we show that any finite odd order subgroup of the exceptional Lie group $\Gtwo $ admits a free smooth action on $S^{11}\times S^{11}$.
The content of this unpublished paper is subsumed in successive work of the authors, in particular arXiv:1102.0820, arXiv:1102.0821 and arXiv:1205.2434.
We construct an action of the braid group B_{2g+2} on the free group F_{2g} extending an action of B_4 on F_2 introduced earlier by Reutenauer and the author. Our action induces a homomorphism from B_{2g+2} into the symplectic modular group Sp_{2g}(Z). In the special case g=2 we show that the latter homomorphism is surjective and determine its kernel, thus obtaining a braid-like presentation of Sp_4(Z).
If $G$ is a semisimple Lie group of real rank at least 2 and $Γ$ is an irreducible lattice in $G$, then every homomorphism from $Γ$ to the outer automorphism group of a finitely generated free group has finite image.
In this paper, we study smooth, semi-free actions on closed, smooth, simply connected manifolds, such that the orbit space is a smoothable manifold. We show that the only simply connected $5$-manifolds admitting a smooth, semi-free circle action with fixed-point components of codimension $4$ are connected sums of $S^3$-bundles over $S^2$. Furthermore, the Betti numbers of the $5$-manifolds and of the quotient $4$-manifolds are related by a simple formula involving the number of fixed-point components. We also investigate semi-free $S^3$ actions on simply connected $8$-manifolds with quotient a…
We provide the first known example of a finite group action on an oriented surface $T$ that is free, orientation-preserving, and does not extend to an arbitrary (in particular, possibly non-free) orientation-preserving action on any compact oriented 3-manifold $N$ with boundary $\partial N = T$. This implies a negative solution to a conjecture of Domínguez and Segovia, as well as Uribe's evenness conjecture for equivariant unitary bordism groups. We more generally provide sufficient conditions that imply infinitely many such group actions on surfaces exist. Intriguingly, any group with such a …
We confirm the Halperin-Carlsson Conjecture for free $Z_p$-torus actions (p is a prime) on 2-dimensional finite CW-complexes and free $Z_2$-torus actions on compact 3-manifolds.
