Boundary-incompressible surface 2026-10-05
A properly embedded topological surface is boundary-incompressible when no disk in the ambient three-manifold joins an essential arc on the topological surface to an arc on the ambient boundary, with the disk's interior disjoint from both.
Elliptization theorem 2026-10-05
Every connected closed orientable three-manifold with finite fundamental group admits spherical geometry. With cyclic fundamental group, it is a lens space.
Heegaard diagram 2026-10-05
A Heegaard diagram marks the boundaries of compressing disks from the two sides of a Heegaard surface. Attaching two-handles along the two collections, and capping resulting spherical boundary components, reconstructs the three-manifold.
Heegaard splitting 2026-10-05
A Heegaard splitting divides a closed three-manifold into two handlebodies with common boundary. For a three-manifold with boundary, one uses compression bodies, which can retain negative boundary components.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 141 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The elliptization theorem says that a closed oriented three-manifold with finite fundamental group has spherical geometry. When the fundamental group is a cyclic group, it is a lens space. Consequently the candidates are with , using the same surgery orientation convention throughout.
The oriented classification of lens spaces says that and are related by an orientation-preserving homeomorphism exactly when . Since , , and modulo five, the complete list isThese are three distinct oriented homeomorphism classes. Reversing orientation interchanges and ; the class containing and admits an orientation-reversing homeomorphism. The elliptization theorem and the stated oriented classification of lens spaces are the general classification results used here.
Taut foliation 2026-10-05
A codimension-one foliation of a closed three-manifold is taut if every leaf meets a closed transverse curve. In particular, the fibers of a bundle over form a taut foliation.