Minimal Crystallizations of 3- and 4- Manifolds

Abstract

A simplicial cell complex K is the face poset of a regular CW complex W such that the boundary complex of each cell is isomorphic to the boundary complex of a simplex of same dimension. If a topological space X is homeomorphic to W then we say that K is a pseudotriangulation of X. For d 1, a (d + 1)-colored graph is a graph = (V; E) with a proper edge coloring : E ! f0; : : : ; dg. Such a graph is called contracted if (V; E n 1(i)) is connected for each color A contracted graph = (V; E) with an edge coloring : E ! f0; : : : ; dg determines a d-dimensional simplicial cell complex K( ) whose vertices have one to one correspondence with the colors 0; : : : ; d and the facets (d-cells) have one to one correspondence with the vertices in V . If K( ) is a pseudotriangulation of a manifold M then ( ; ) is called a crystallization of M. In [71], Pezzana proved that every connected closed PL manifold admits a crystallization. This thesis addresses many important results of crystallization theory in combinatorial topology. The main contributions in this thesis are the followings. We have introduced the weight of a group which has a presentation with number of relations is at most the number of generators. We have shown that the number of vertices of any crystallization of a connected closed 3-manifold M is at least the weight of the fundamental group of M. This lower bound is sharp for the 3-manifolds RP3, L(3; 1), L(5; 2), S1 S1 S1, S2 S1, S2 S1 and S3=Q8, where Q8 is the quaternion group. Moreover, there is a unique such vertex minimal crystallization in each of these seven cases. We have also constructed crystallizations of L(kq 1; q) with 4(q + k 1) vertices for q 3, k 2 and L(kq +1; q) with 4(q + k) vertices for q 4, k 1. In [22], Casali and Cristofori found similar crystallizations of lens spaces. By a recent result of Swartz [76], our crystallizations of L(kq + 1; q) are vertex minimal when kq + 1 are even. In [47], Gagliardi found presentations of the fundamental group of a manifold M in terms of a crystallization of M. Our construction is the converse of this, namely, given a presentation of the fundamental group of a 3-manifold M, we have constructed a crystallization of M. These results are in Chapter 3. We have de ned the weight of the pair (hS j Ri; R) for a given presentation hS j R of a group, where the number of generators is equal to the number of relations. We present an algorithm to construct crystallizations of 3-manifolds whose fundamental group has a presentation with two generators and two relations. If the weight of (hS j Ri; R) is n then our algorithm constructs all the n-vertex crystallizations which yield (hS j Ri; R). As an application, we have constructed some new crystallization of 3-manifolds. We have generalized our algorithm for presentations with three generators and a certain class of relations. For m 3 and m n k 2, our generalized algorithm gives a 2(2m + 2n + 2k 6 + n2 + k2)-vertex crystallization of the closed connected orientable 3-manifold Mhm; n; ki having fundamental group hx1; x2; x3 j xm1 = xn2 = xk3 = x1x2x3i. These crystallizations are minimal and unique with respect to the given presentations. If `n = 2' or `k 3 and m 4' then our crystallization of Mhm; n; ki is vertex-minimal for all the known cases. These results are in Chapter 4. We have constructed a minimal crystallization of the standard PL K3 surface. The corresponding simplicial cell complex has face vector (5; 10; 230; 335; 134). In combination with known results, this yields minimal crystallizations of all simply connected PL 4-manifolds of \standard" type, i.e., all connected sums of CP2, CP2, S2 S2, and the K3 surface. In particular, we obtain minimal crystallizations of a pair 4-manifolds which are homeomorphic but not PL-homeomorphic. We have also presented an elementary proof of the uniqueness of the 8-vertex crystallization of CP2. These results are in Chapter 5. For any crystallization ( ; ) the number f1(K( )) of 1-simplices in K( ) is at least d+1 . It is easy to see that f1(K( )) = d+1 if and only if (V; 1(A)) is connected for each d 2 2 1)-set A called simple. All the crystallization in Chapter 5 (. Such a crystallization is are simple. Let ( ; ) be a crystallization of M, where = (V; E) and : E ! f0; : : : ; dg. We say that ( ; ) is semi-simple if (V; 1(A)) has m + 1 connected components for each (d 1)-set A, where m is the rank of the fundamental group of M. Let ( ; ) be a connected (d +1)-regular (d +1)-colored graph, where = (V; E) and : E ! f0; : : : ; dg. An embedding i : ,! S of into a closed surface S is called regular if there exists a cyclic permutation ("0; "1; : : : ; "d) (of the color set) such that the boundary of each face of i( ) is a bi-color cycle with colors "j; "j+1 for some j (addition is modulo d+1). Then the regular genus of ( ; ) is the least genus (resp., half of genus) of the orientable (resp., non-orientable) surface into which embeds regularly. The regular genus of a closed connected PL 4-manifold M is the minimum regular genus of its crystallizations. For a closed connected PL 4-manifold M, we have provided the following: (i) a lower bound for the regular genus of M and (ii) a lower bound of the number of vertices of any crystallization of M. We have proved that all PL 4-manifolds admitting semi-simple crystallizations, attain our bounds. We have also characterized the class of PL 4-manifolds which admit semi-simple crystallizations. These results are in Chapter 6.