We compute two-term skein modules of framed oriented links in oriented 3-manifolds. They contain the self-writhe and total linking number invariants of framed oriented links in a universal way. The relations in a natural presentation of the skein module are interpreted as monodromies in the space of immersions from circles to the 3-manifold.
We consider the problem of robot motion planning in an oriented Riemannian manifold as a topological motion planning problem in its oriented frame bundle. For this purpose, we study the topological complexity of oriented frame bundles, derive an upper bound for this invariant and certain lower bounds from cup length computations. In particular, we show that for large classes of oriented manifolds, e.g. for spin manifolds, the topological complexity of the oriented frame bundle is bounded from below by the dimension of the base manifold.
We prove that the deformation space $AH(M)$ of marked hyperbolic 3-manifolds homotopy equivalent to a fixed compact 3-manifold $M$ with incompressible boundary is locally connected at quasiconformally rigid points.
A new method to derive presentations of skein modules is developed. For the case of homotopy skein modules it will be shown how the topology of a 3-manifold is reflected in the structure of the module. The freeness problem for q-homotopy skein modules is solved, and a natural skein module related to linking numbers is computed.
We generalise work of Young-Eun Choi to the setting of ideal triangulations with vertex links of arbitrary genus, showing that the set of all (possibly incomplete) hyperbolic cone-manifold structures realised by positively oriented hyperbolic ideal tetrahedra on a given topological ideal triangulation and with prescribed cone angles at all edges is (if non-empty) a smooth complex manifold of dimension the sum of the genera of the vertex links. Moreover, we show that the complex lengths of a collection of peripheral elements give a local holomorphic parameterisation of this manifold.
In this paper we give a method to construct Heegaard splittings of oriented graph manifolds with orientable bases. A graph manifold is a closed $3$-manifold admitting only Seifert-fibered pieces in its Jaco-Shalen decomposition; for technical reasons, we restrict our attention to the fully oriented case, i.e. both the pieces and the bases are oriented.
We study actions of discrete subgroups $Γ$ of semi-simple Lie groups $G$ on associated oriented flag manifolds. These are quotients $G/P$, where the subgroup $P$ lies between a parabolic subgroup and its identity component. For Anosov subgroups $Γ\subset G$, we identify domains in oriented flag manifolds by removing a set obtained from the limit set of $Γ$, and give a combinatorial description of proper discontinuity and cocompactness of these domains. This generalizes analogous results of Kapovich-Leeb-Porti to the oriented setting. We give first examples of cocompact domains of discontinuity…
We show that there exist infinitely many pairwise distinct non-closed G_2-manifolds (some of which have holonomy full G_2) such that they admit co-oriented contact structures and have co-oriented contact submanifolds which are also associative. Along the way, we prove that there exists a tubular neighborhood N of every orientable three-submanifold Y of an orientable seven-manifold with spin structure such that for every co-oriented contact structure on Y, N admits a co-oriented contact structure such that Y is a contact submanifold of N. Moreover, we construct infinitely many pairwise distinct…
In this note we observe, answering a question of Eliashberg and Thurston, that all contact structures on a closed oriented 3-manifold are $C^\infty$-deformations of foliations.
Let $N$ be a hyperbolic 3-manifold and $B$ a component of the interior of $AH(π_1(N))$, the space of marked hyperbolic 3-manifolds homotopy equivalent to $N$. We will give topological conditions on $N$ sufficient to give $ρ\in \bar{B}$ such that for every small neighborhood $V$ of $ρ$, $V \cap B$ is disconnected. This implies that $\bar{B}$ is not manifold with boundary.
We prove that the deformation space AH(M) of marked hyperbolic 3-manifolds homotopy equivalent to a fixed compact 3-manifold M with incompressible boundary is locally connected at minimally parabolic points. Moreover, spaces of Kleinian surface groups are locally connected at quasiconformally rigid points. Similar results are obtained for deformation spaces of acylindrical 3-manifolds and Bers slices.
A flow defined by a nonsingular smooth vector field $X$ on a closed manifold $M$ is said to be parameter rigid if given any real valued smooth function $f$ on $M$, there are a smooth funcion $g$ and a constant $c$ such that $f=X(g)+c$ holds. We show that the parameter rigid flows on closed orientable 3-manifolds are smoothly conjugate to Kronecker flows on the 3-torus with badly approximable slope.
We develop the deformation theory of hyperbolic cone-3-manifolds with cone-angles less than $2π$, i.e. contained in the interval $(0,2π)$. In the present paper we focus on deformations keeping the topological type of the cone-manifold fixed. We prove local rigidity for such structures. This gives a positive answer to a question of A. Casson.
Let M a 3-manifold with torus boundary which is a rational homology circle. We study deformations of reducible representations of p_1(M) into PSL_2(C) associated to a simple zero of the twisted Alexander polynomial. We also describe the local structure of the representation and character varieties.
This is the third in a series of papers constructing hyperbolic structures on all Haken three-manifolds. This portion deals with the mixed case of the deformation space for manifolds with incompressible boundary that are not acylindrical, but are more complicated than interval bundles over surfaces. This is a slight revision of a 1986 preprint, with a few figures added, and slight clarifications of some of the text, but with no attempt to connect this to later developments such as groups acting on R-trees, etc.
For any closed oriented hyperbolic $3$-manifold $M$, and any closed oriented $3$-manifold $N$, we will show that $M$ admits a finite cover $M'$, such that there exists a degree-$2$ map $f:M'\rightarrow N$, i.e. $M$ virtually $2$-dominates $N$.
We show that if the lower central series of the fundamental group of a closed oriented $3$-manifold stabilizes then the maximal nilpotent quotient is a cyclic group, a quaternion $2$-group cross an odd order cyclic group, or a Heisenberg group. These groups are well known to be precisely the nilpotent fundamental groups of closed oriented $3$-manifolds.
This is the first in a series of papers showing that Haken manifolds have hyperbolic structures; this first was published, the second two have existed only in preprint form, and later preprints were never completed. This eprint is only an approximation to the published version, which is the definitive form for part I, and is provided for convenience only. All references and quotations should be taken from the published version, since the theorem numbering is different and not all corrections have been incorporated into the present version. Parts II and III will be made available as eprints sho…
Characteristic classes of oriented vector bundles can be identified with cohomology classes of the disjoint union of classifying spaces BSO_n of special orthogonal groups SO_n with n=0,1,... A characteristic class is stable if it extends to a cohomology class of a homotopy colimit BSO of classifying spaces BSO_n. Similarly, characteristic classes of smooth oriented manifold bundles with fibers given by oriented closed smooth manifolds of a fixed dimension d\ge 0 can be identified with cohomology classes of the disjoint union of classifying spaces BDiff M of orientation preserving diffeomorphis…
Let $f:V^n\looparrowright M^m$ be a smooth generic immersion. Then the set of points, that have at least $k$ preimages is an image of a (non-generic) immersion. If the manifolds $V^n$ and $M^m$ are oriented and $m-n$ is even, then the manifold of $k$-fold points is also oriented. In this paper we compute the oriented bordism class of the manifold of $k$-fold points in terms of the differential $df$, provided the tangent bundle of the manifold $M^m$ has a nowhere zero cross-section.
In an earlier paper we showed that the space of deformations of a smooth, compact, orientable Harvey-Lawson submanifold HL in a G2 manifold M can be identified with the direct sum of the space of smooth functions and closed 2-forms on HL. In that paper, we also introduced a new class of Lagrangian-type 4-dimensional submanifolds inside G2 manifolds, called them RS submanifolds, and proved that the space of deformations of a smooth, compact, orientable RS submanifold in a G2 manifold M can be identified with closed 3-forms on RS. In this short note, we define a new class of Lagrangian-type 4-di…
3-dimensional Harvey Lawson submanifolds were introduced in an earlier paper by Akbulut-Salur, as examples of Lagrangian-type manifolds inside G2 manifold. In this paper, we first show that the space of deformations of a smooth, compact, orientable Harvey-Lawson submanifold HL in a G2 manifold M can be identified with the direct sum of the space of smooth functions and closed 2-forms on HL. We then introduce a new class of Lagrangian-type 4-dimensional submanifolds inside G2, call them RS submanifolds and prove that the space of deformations of a smooth, compact, orientable RS submanifold in a…
For a closed oriented 3-manifold $Y$ we define $n(Y)$ to be the minimal non-negative number such that in each homotopy class of non-singular vector fields of $Y$ there is a Morse-Smale vector field with less or equal to $n(Y)$ periodic orbits. We combine the construction process of Morse-Smale flows given in [2] with handle decompositions of compact orientable surfaces to provide an upper bound to the number $n(Y)$ for oriented Seifert manifolds and oriented graph manifolds prime to $\stwo\times\sone$.
We characterize the closed, oriented, Seifert fibered 3-manifolds which are oriented boundaries of Stein manifolds. We also show that for this class of 3-manifolds the existence of Stein fillings is equivalent to the existence of symplectic fillings.
In this survey, we study representations of finitely generated groups into Lie groups, focusing on the deformation spaces of convex real projective structures on closed manifolds and orbifolds, with an excursion on projective structures on surfaces. We survey the basics of the theory of character varieties, geometric structures on orbifolds, and Hilbert geometry. The main examples of finitely generated groups for us will be Fuchsian groups, 3-manifold groups and Coxeter groups.
Let M be a complete finite-volume hyperbolic 3-manifold with compact non-empty geodesic boundary and k toric cusps, and let T be a geometric partially truncated triangulation of M. We show that the variety of solutions of consistency equations for T is a smooth manifold or real dimension 2k near the point representing the unique complete structure on M. As a consequence, the relation between deformations of triangulations and deformations of representations is completely understood, at least in a neighbourhood of the complete structure. This allows us to prove, for example, that small deformat…
This paper gives an exposition of the authors' harmonic deformation theory for 3-dimensional hyperbolic cone-manifolds. We discuss topological applications to hyperbolic Dehn surgery as well as recent applications to Kleinian group theory. A central idea is that local rigidity results (for deformations fixing cone angles) can be turned into effective control on the deformations that do exist. This leads to precise analytic and geometric versions of the idea that hyperbolic structures with short geodesics are close to hyperbolic structures with cusps. The paper also outlines a new harmonic defo…
We introduce the $2$-nodal spherical deformation of certain singular fibers of genus $2$ fibrations, and use such deformations to construct various examples of simply connected minimal symplectic $4$-manifolds with small topology. More specifically, we construct new exotic minimal symplectic $4$-manifolds homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to ${\mathbb{CP}}^{2}\#6({\overline{\mathbb{CP}}^{2}})$, ${\mathbb{CP}}^{2}\#7({\overline{\mathbb{CP}}^{2}})$, and $3{\mathbb{CP}}^{2}\#k({\overline{\mathbb{CP}}^{2}})$ for $k=16, 17, 18, 19$ using combinations of such deformations, symplectic blowups, and (…