If a boundary surface inclusion has noninjective fundamental group map, there is a compression disk whose boundary represents a nontrivial element of that kernel. More generally the boundary can be required to avoid a prescribed normal subgroup if a singular disk with that property exists.
Start with a singular disk whose boundary represents a prescribed nontrivial class in a boundary subsurface. Repeatedly lift it through double covering spaces of regular neighbourhoods of its image. The number of distinct image simplexes strictly increases and is bounded by the number of domain simplexes, so the tower ends. At the top, vanishing first mod-two homology forces every boundary component to be a sphere. An embedded disk can then be constructed and projected down the tower. Resolving double curves preserves a boundary class outside a chosen normal subgroup, giving an embedded compression disk at the bottom.
A simple closed curve on the boundary of a three-manifold which is nullhomotopic in the manifold bounds a properly embedded disk. The boundary curve is retained; the Loop theorem can instead find a different simple essential curve in a nontrivial kernel.
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The Loop Theorem, often referred to in the context of topology and knot theory, states that for a given loop (or closed curve) in 3-dimensional space, if the loop does not intersect itself, it can be deformed (or "homotoped") to a simpler form—usually to a point or a standard circle—without leaving the surface it is contained within.