Constructing broken Lefschetz fibrations from handle decompositions

Abstract

We present an approach to constructing broken Lefschetz fibrations (BLFs) $f:X\rightarrow S^2$ from a handle decomposition of a 4-manifold $X$. Given a handle decomposition as input these techniques yield explicit descriptions of the BLFs, and do not rely on classification results from contact topology or the choice of a generic indefinite function like some earlier approaches. We show that this approach will always work in the case when $X$ is the double of a 4-manifold with boundary, and compute explicit examples of BLFs on connected sums of $S^2$-bundles.