For a given branched covering between closed connected surfaces, there are several easy relations one can establish between the Euler characteristics of the surfaces, their orientability, the total degree, and the local degrees at the branching points, including the classical Riemann-Hurwitz formula. These necessary relations have been khown to be also sufficient for the existence of the covering except when the base surface is the sphere (and when it is the projective plane, but this case reduces to the case of the sphere). If the base surface is the sphere, many exceptions are known to occur and the problem is widely open. Generalizing methods of Baranski, we prove in this paper that the necessary relations are actually sufficient in a specific but rather interesting situation. Namely under the assumption that the base surface is the sphere, that there are three branching points, that one of these branching points has only two preimages with one being a double point, and either that the covering surface is the sphere and that the degree is odd, or that the covering surface has genus at least one, with a single specific exception. For the case of the covering surface the sphere we also show that for each even degree there are precisely two exceptions.
We provide criteria ensuring that a tunnel number one knot $K$ is not determined by its double branched cover, in the sense that the double branched cover is also the double branched cover of a knot $K'$ not equivalent to $K$.
In this work we characterize branch data of branched coverings of even degree over the projective plane which are realizable by indecomposable branched coverings.
We define a laminar branched surface to be a branched surface satisfying the following conditions: (1) Its horizontal boundary is incompressible; (2) there is no monogon; (3) there is no Reeb component; (4) there is no sink disk (after eliminating trivial bubbles in the branched surface). The first three conditions are standard in the theory of branched surfaces, and a sink disk is a disk branch of the branched surface with all branch directions of its boundary arcs pointing inwards. We will show in this paper that every laminar branched surface carries an essential lamination, and any essenti…
A branched covering surface-knot is a surface-knot in the form of a branched covering over a surface-knot. For a branched covering surface-knot, we have a numerical invariant called the simplifying number. We show that branched covering surface-knots with degree three have the simplifying numbers less than three.
We define sink marks for branched complexes and find conditions for them to determine a branched surface structure. These will be used to construct branched surfaces in knot and tangle complements. We will extend Delman's theorem and prove that a Montesinos knot $K$ of length at least 3 has a persistently laminar branched surface unless it is equivalent to $K(1/2q_1,\, 1/q_2,\, 1/q_3,\, -1)$ for some positive integers $q_i$. In most cases these branched surfaces are genuine, in which case $K$ admits no atoroidal Seifert fibered surgery. It will also be shown that there are many persistently la…
A branched affine structure on a compact topological surface with marked points is a complex affine structure outside the marked points. We give a proof of an unpublished foundational theorem of Veech, stating that any branched affine surface can be decomposed into affine triangles and some annulus-shaped cylinders. Then, we prove that any pair of such decompositions can be connected by a chain of flips. As a first step toward a compactification of the moduli spaces of branched affine structures, we introduce invariant $α$ of a branched affine surface that controls degeneracy of the structure.…
We introduce and analyze the characteristic foliation induced by a contact structure on a branched surface, in particular a branched standard spine of a 3-manifold. We extend to (fairly general) singular foliations of branched surfaces the local existence and uniqueness results which hold for genuine surfaces. Moreover we show that global uniqueness holds when restricting to tight structures. We establish branched versions of the elimination lemma. We prove a smooth version of the Gillman-Rolfsen PL-embedding theorem, deducing that branched spines can be used to construct contact structures in…
Braided embeddings are embeddings to a product disc bundle so the projection to the first factor is a branched cover. In this paper, we study which branched covers lift to braided embeddings, which is a generalization of the Borsuk-Ulam problem. We determine when a braided embedding in the complement of branch locus can be extended over the branch locus in smoothly (or locally flat piecewise linearly), and use it in conjunction with Hansen's criterion for lifting covers. We show that every branched cover over an orientable surface lifts to a codimension two braided embedding in the piecewise l…
For any integer n > 2, the n-fold cyclic branched cover M of an alternating prime knot K in the 3-sphere determines K, meaning that if K is a knot in the 3-sphere that is not equivalent to K then its n-fold cyclic branched cover cannot be homeomorphic to M.
Given a branched covering of degree d between closed surfaces, it determines a collection of partitions of d, the branch data. In this work we show that any branch data are realized by an indecomposable primitive branched covering on a connected close surface N with Euler's characteristic less than or equal to 0. This shows that decomposable and indecomposable realizations may coexist. Moreover, we characterize the branch data of a decomposable primitive branched covering.
The branched virtual fibering theorem by Sakuma states that every closed orientable $3$-manifold with a Heegaard surface of genus $g$ has a branched double cover which is a genus $g$ surface bundle over the circle. It is proved by Brooks that such a surface bundle can be chosen to be hyperbolic. We prove that the minimal entropy over all hyperbolic, genus $g$ surface bundles as branched double covers of the $3$-sphere behaves like 1/$g$. We also give an alternative construction of surface bundles over the circle in Sakuma's theorem when closed $3$-manifolds are branched double covers of the $3…
We give an explicit formula for a 2-fold branched covering from $\mathbb{CP}^2$ to $S^4$, and relate it to other maps between quotients of $S^2\times{S^2}$.
A branched covering surface-knot is a surface-knot in the form of a branched covering over an oriented surface-knot $F$, where we include the case when the covering has no branch points. A branched covering surface-knot is presented by a graph called a chart on a surface diagram of $F$. We can simplify a branched covering surface-knot by an addition of 1-handles with chart loops to a form such that its chart is the union of free edges and 1-handles with chart loops. We investigate properties of such simplifications for the case when branched covering surface-knots have a non-zero number of bra…
For the existence of a branched covering Sigma~ --> Sigma between closed surfaces there are easy necessary conditions in terms of chi(Sigma~), chi(Sigma), orientability, the total degree, and the local degrees at the branching points. A classical problem dating back to Hurwitz asks whether these conditions are also sufficient. Thanks to the work of many authors, the problem remains open only when Sigma is the sphere, in which case exceptions to existence are known to occur. In this paper we describe new infinite series of exceptions, in particular previously unknown exceptions with Sigma~ not …
Many three dimensional manifolds are two-fold branched covers of the three dimensional sphere. However, there are some that are not. This paper includes exposition about two-fold branched covers and many examples. It shows that there are three dimensional homology spheres that do not two-fold branched cover any manifold, ones that only two-fold branched cover the three dimensional sphere, ones that just two-fold branched cover a non-trivial manifold, and ones that two-fold branched cover the sphere and non-trivial manifolds. When a manifold is surgery on a knot, the possible quotients via invo…
A branched covering surface-knot over an oriented surface-knot $F$ is a surface-knot in the form of a branched covering over $F$. A branched covering surface-knot over $F$ is presented by a graph called a chart on a surface diagram of $F$. For a branched covering surface-knot, an addition of 1-handles equipped with chart loops is a simplifying operation which deforms the chart to the form of the union of free edges and 1-handles with chart loops. We investigate properties of such simplifications.
In this paper we study the connections between cyclic presentations of groups and branched cyclic coverings of (1,1)-knots. In particular, we prove that every n-fold strongly-cyclic branched covering of a (1,1)-knot admits a cyclic presentation for the fundamental group encoded by a Heegaard diagram of genus n.
By a construction of Berstein and Edmonds every proper branched cover f between manifolds is a factor of a branched covering orbit map from a locally connected and locally compact Hausdorff space called the monodromy space of f to the target manifold. For proper branched covers between 2-manifolds the monodromy space is known to be a manifold. We show that this does not generalize to dimension 3 by constructing a self-map of the 3-sphere for which the monodromy space is not a locally contractible space.
We prove that a prime knot K is not determined by its p-fold cyclic branched cover for at most two odd primes p. Moreover, we show that for a given odd prime p, the p-fold cyclic branched cover of a prime knot K is the p-fold cyclic branched cover of at most one more knot K' non equivalent to K. To prove the main theorem, a result concerning the symmetries of knots is also obtained. This latter result can be interpreted as a characterisation of the trivial knot.
We give a sufficient condition for a branched surface in a 3 dimensional manifold to fully carry a lamination, giving a piece of answer to a classical question of D. Gabai.
We study simple branched coverings of degree d of the 2- and 3- dimensional sphere branched over oriented links. We demonstrate how to use braid charts to develop embeddings of these into $S^k \times D^2$ for $k=2,3 when $d=2,3$. This is an initial part of our study and represents the manuscript submitted to the RIMS workshop at Intelligence of Low Dimensional Topology.
Strongly-cyclic branched coverings of knots are studied by using their (g,1)-decompositions. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of such coverings are obtained. It is also shown that their fundamental groups admit geometric g-words cyclic presentations.
In a recent paper Y. Hu has given a sufficient condition for the fundamental group of the r-th cyclic branched covering of S^3 along a prime knot to be left-orderable in terms of representations of the knot group. Applying her criterion to a large class of two-bridge knots, we determine a range of the integer r>1 for which the r-th cyclic branched covering of S^3 along the knot is left-orderable.
We discuss 3-manifolds which are cyclic coverings of the 3-sphere, branched over 2-bridge knots and links. Different descriptions of these manifolds are presented: polyhedral, Heegaard diagram, Dehn surgery and coloured graph constructions. Using these descriptions, we give presentations for their fundamental groups, which are cyclic presentations in the case of 2-bridge knots. The homology groups are given for a wide class of cases. Moreover, we prove that each singly-cyclic branched covering of a 2-bridge link is the composition of a meridian-cyclic branched covering of a determined link and…
We prove that for any closed, connected, oriented 3-manifold M, there exists an infinite family of 2-fold branched covers of M that are hyperbolic 3-manifolds and surface bundles over the circle with arbitrarily large volume.
We prove that Stein surfaces with boundary coincide up to orientation preserving diffeomorphisms with simple branched coverings of $\B^4$ whose branch set is a positive braided surface. As a consequence, we have that a smooth oriented 3-manifold is Stein fillable iff it has a positive open-book decomposition.
We study the connections among the mapping class group of the twice punctured torus, the cyclic branched coverings of (1,1)-knots and the cyclic presentations of groups. We give the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the n-fold strongly-cyclic branched coverings of (1,1)-knots, through the elements of the mapping class group. We prove that every n-fold strongly-cyclic branched covering of a (1,1)-knot admits a cyclic presentation for the fundamental group, arising from a Heegaard splitting of genus n. Moreover, we give an algorithm to produce the cyclic pre…
We give necessary and sufficient conditions for a 4-manifold to be a branched covering of $CP^2$, $S^2\times S^2$, $S^2 \mathbin{\tilde\times} S^2$ and $S^3 \times S^1$, which are expressed in terms of the Betti numbers and the intersection form of the 4-manifold.
We consider branched coverings which are simple in the sense that any point of the target has at most one singular preimage. The cobordism classes of $k$-fold simple branched coverings between $n$-manifolds form an abelian group $Cob^1(n,k)$. Moreover, $Cob^1(*,k) = \bigoplus_{n=0}^{\infty} Cob^1(n,k)$ is a module over $Ω^{SO}_*$. We construct a universal $k$-fold simple branched covering, and use it to compute this module rationally. As a corollary, we determine the rank of the groups $Cob^1(n,k)$. In the case $n = 2$ we compute the group $Cob^1(2,k)$, give a complete set of invariants and co…
We are interested in finite groups acting orientation-preservingly on 3-manifolds (arbitrary actions, ie not necessarily free actions). In particular we consider finite groups which contain an involution with nonempty connected fixed point set. This condition is satisfied by the isometry group of any hyperbolic cyclic branched covering of a strongly invertible knot as well as by the isometry group of any hyperbolic 2-fold branched covering of a knot in the 3-sphere. In the paper we give a characterization of nonsolvable groups of this type. Then we consider some possible applications to the st…
We characterize the cyclic branched covers of the 2-sphere where every homeomorphism of the sphere lifts to a homeomorphism of the covering surface. This answers a question that appeared in an early version of the erratum of Birman and Hilden [2].
We show that, if the local dimension of the branch set of a discrete and open mapping $f\colon M\to N$ between $n$-manifolds is less than $(n-2)$ at a point $y$ of the image of the branch set $fB_f$, then the local monodromy of $f$ at $y$ is perfect. In particular, for generalized branched covers between $n$-manifolds the dimension of $fB_f$ is exactly $(n-2)$ at the points of abelian local monodromy. As an application, we show that a generalized branched covering $f\colon M \to N$ of local multiplicity at most three between $n$-manifolds is either a covering or $fB_f$ has local dimension $(n-…
We discuss how the fractional Dehn twist coefficient behaves under a fully ramified branched covering of an open book, and give applications to both topological and contact 3-manifolds. Among them, we show that non-right-veering closed braids represent virtually loose transverse links.
Branched covers between Riemann surfaces are associated with certain combinatorial data, and Hurwitz existence problem asks whether given data satisfying those combinatorial constraints can be realized by some branched cover. We connect recent development in spherical conic metrics to this old problem, and give a new method of finding exceptional (unrealizable) branching data. As an application, we find new infinite sets of exceptional branched cover data on the Riemann sphere.
A canonical branched covering over each sufficiently good simplicial complex is constructed. Its structure depends on the combinatorial type of the complex. In this way, each closed orientable 3-manifold arises as a branched covering over the 3-sphere from some triangulation of S^3. This result is related to a theorem of Hilden and Montesinos. The branched coverings introduced admit a rich theory in which the group of projectivities plays a central role.
We study global injectivity of proper branched coverings defined on the Euclidean $n$-ball in the case when the branch set is compact. In particular we show that such mappings are homeomorphisms when $n=3$ or when the branch set is empty. This proves the corresponding cases of a question of Vuorinen from [Vuo79].
We study canonical decompositions of postcritically finite branched coverings of the 2-sphere, as defined by K. Pilgrim. We show that every hyperbolic cycle in the decomposition does not have a Thurston obstruction. It is thus Thurston equivalent to a rational map.
A contamination in a 3-manifold is an object interpolating between the contact structure and the lamination. Contaminations seem to provide a link between 3-dimensional contact geometry and the classical topology of 3-manifolds, as described in a separate paper. In this paper we deal with contaminations carried by branched surfaces, giving a sufficient condition for a branched surface to carry a pure contamination.
In a paper published in 2002, the author gave a criterion to determine whether there is a fiber-preserving branched covering between two given orientable Seifert manifolds with orientable bases. Here we supply some details of the proof of two claims in that paper. We give an explicit construction of fiber-preserving branched covering between two Seifert fibered solid tori when their Seifert invariants satisfy certain relation, and we show the factorability of fiber-preserving branched coverings between two closed Seifert manifolds.
We show that Brieskorn manifolds with their standard contact structures are contact branched coverings of spheres. This covering maps a contact open book decomposition of the Brieskorn manifold onto a Milnor open book of the sphere.
Let M be a smooth 4-manifold which admits a relatively minimal hyperelliptic genus h Lefschetz fibration over the 2-sphere. If all of the vanishing cycles for this fibration are nonseparating curves, then we show that M is a 2-fold cover of a 2-sphere bundle over the 2-sphere, branched over an embedded surface. If the collection of vanishing cycles for this fibration includes separating curves, we show that M is the relative minimalization of a Lefshetz fibration N, with N a 2-fold branched cover of a rational surface, branched over an embedded surface.
Loi and Piergallini showed that a smooth compact, connected $4$-manifold $X$ with boundary admits a Stein structure if and only if $X$ is a simple branched cover of a $4$-disk $D^4$ branched along a positive braided surface $S$ in a bidisk $D_{1}^{2} \times D_{2}^{2} \approx D^4$. For each integer $N \geq 2$, we construct a braided surface $S_{N}$ in $D^4$ and simple branched covers $X_{N, 1}, X_{N, 2}, \dots , X_{N, N}$ of $D^{4}$ branched along $S_{N}$ such that the covers have the same degrees, and they are mutually diffeomorphic, but the Stein structures associated to the covers are mutual…
In the paper, we consider the harmonic maps between surfaces $Σ$ and $S$ in the homotopy class of a (branched) covering map $u_0$. We prove the uniqueness of critical points of energy function and the injectivity of Hopf differential if $u_0$ is a covering map. On the other hand, if $u_0$ is a branched covering, we show that the uniqueness of critical points fails if $u_0$ is a non-simple branched covering, and prove the injectivity of Hopf differential $Φ:\mc{T}(S)\to \op{QD}(Σ,g)$ when $g=[u_0^* h]$ for some hyperbolic metric $h$ on $S$.
We give examples of harmonic maps between negatively curved manifolds with special properties. These negatively curved manifolds do not have the homotopy type of a locally symmetric space.
A branched covering map of surfaces induces a map in the opposite direction between their arc complexes. We represent a branched covering map combinatorially using what we call a lifting picture, and use this representation to computably solve the membership problem of the set of weighted arc diagrams on a given surface which can be obtained by lifting a weighted arc diagram on a bigon. We provide a brute force solution in the general case, and an efficient solution when the input arc diagram is a triangulation.
We consider translation surfaces with poles on surfaces. We shall prove that any finite group appears as the automorphism group of some translation surface with poles. As a direct consequence we obtain the existence of structures achieving the maximal possible number of automorphisms allowed by their genus and we finally extend the same results to branched projective structures.
We identify branched coverings (continuous open surjections p:Y->X of Hausdorff spaces with uniformly bounded number of pre-images) with Hilbert C*-modules C(Y) over C(X) and with faithful unital positive conditional expectations E:C(Y)->C(X) topologically of index-finite type. The case of non-branched coverings corresponds to projective finitely generated modules and expectations (algebraically) of index-finite type. This allows to define non-commutative analogues of (branched) coverings.
We prove that if S is a closed compact surface of negative Euler characteristic, and if R is a quasi-Fuchsian representation in PSL(2,C), then the deformation space M(k,R) of branched projective structures on S with total branching order k and holonomy R is connected, as soon as k>0. Equivalently, two branched projective structures with the same quasi-Fuchsian holonomy and the same number of branch points are related by a movement of branch points. In particular grafting annuli are obtained by moving branch points. In the appendix we give an explicit atlas for the space M(k,R). It is shown to …
We develop a method to show the fundamental group of the double branched covering of a link is not left-orderable by introducing the notion of the coarse presentation. As in the usual group presentations, a coarse presentation is given by a set of generators and relations, but inequalities are allowed as relations. By using coarse presentation, we give a family of links whose double branched covering has the non-left-orderable fundamental group. Our family of links includes many known examples and new examples.
We prove that while there are maps $\bT^4\to\#^3(\bS^2\times\bS^2)$ of arbitrarily large degree, there is no branched cover from $4$-torus to $\#^3(\bS^2\times \bS^2)$. More generally, we obtain that, as long as $N$ satisfies a suitable cohomological condition, any $π_1$-surjective branched cover $\bT^n \to N$ is a homeomorphism.
