Bitwist 3–manifolds

Cannon, James W; Floyd, William J; Parry, Walter R

doi:10.2140/agt.2009.9.187

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Bitwist 3–manifolds

J W Cannon, W J Floyd and W R Parry

Algebraic & Geometric Topology 9 (2009) 187–220

DOI: 10.2140/agt.2009.9.187

Abstract

Our earlier twisted-face-pairing construction showed how to modify an arbitrary orientation-reversing face-pairing on a faceted 3–ball in a mechanical way so that the quotient is automatically a closed, orientable 3–manifold. The modifications were, in fact, parametrized by a finite set of positive integers, arbitrarily chosen, one integer for each edge class of the original face-pairing. This allowed us to find very simple face-pairing descriptions of many, though presumably not all, 3–manifolds.

Here we show how to modify the construction to allow negative parameters, as well as positive parameters, in the twisted-face-pairing construction. We call the modified construction the bitwist construction. We prove that all closed connected orientable 3–manifolds are bitwist manifolds. As with the twist construction, we analyze and describe the Heegaard splitting naturally associated with a bitwist description of a manifold.

Keywords

3–manifold constructions, Dehn surgeries

Mathematical Subject Classification 2000

Primary: 57N10

References

Publication

Received: 13 June 2008

Revised: 13 January 2009

Accepted: 13 November 2008

Published: 2 February 2009

Authors

J W Cannon
Department of Mathematics Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 USA

W J Floyd
Department of Mathematics Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA
http://www.math.vt.edu/people/floyd/
W R Parry
Department of Mathematics Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, MI 48197 USA

Volume 9, issue 1 (2009)