arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Stefan Friedl.
Every closed orientable surface S has the following property: any two connected covers of S of the same degree are homeomorphic (as spaces). In this, paper we give a complete classification of compact 3-manifolds with empty or toroidal boundary which have the above property. We also discuss related group-theoretic questions.
This paper stems from the observation (arising from work of T. Delzant) that "most" Kähler groups virtually algebraically fiber, i.e. admit a finite index subgroup that maps onto $\Bbb{Z}$ with finitely generated kernel. For the remaining ones, the Albanese dimension of all finite index subgroups is at most one, i.e. they have virtual Albanese dimension $va(G) \leq 1$. We show that the existence of algebraic fibrations has implications in the study of coherence and higher BNSR invariants of the fundamental group of aspherical Kähler surfaces. The class of Kähler groups with $va(G) \leq 1$ includes virtual surface groups. Further examples exist; nonetheless they exhibit a strong relation with surface groups. In fact, we show that the Green--Lazarsfeld sets of groups with $va(G) = 1$ (virtually) coincide with those of surface groups, and furthermore that the only virtually RFRS groups with $va(G) = 1$ are virtually surface groups.
It is well known that the Blanchfield pairing of a knot can be expressed using Seifert matrices. In this paper, we compute the Blanchfield pairing of a colored link with non-zero Alexander polynomial. More precisely, we show that the Blanchfield pairing of such a link can be written in terms of generalized Seifert matrices which arise from the use of C-complexes.
We assign to a finite $CW$-complex and an element in its first cohomology group a twisted version of the $L^2$-Euler characteristic and study its main properties. In the case of an irreducible orientable $3$-manifold with empty or toroidal boundary and infinite fundamental group we identify it with the Thurston norm. We will use the $L^2$-Euler characteristic to address the problem whether the existence of a map inducing an epimorphism on fundamental groups implies an inequality of the Thurston norms.
Graph manifolds are manifolds that decompose along tori into pieces with a tame $S^1$-structure. In this paper, we prove that the simplicial volume of graph manifolds (which is known to be zero) can be approximated by integral simplicial volumes of their finite coverings. This gives a uniform proof of the vanishing of rank gradients, Betti number gradients and torsion homology gradients for graph manifolds.
We show that the $\mathbb{Q}/\mathbb{Z}$-valued linking forms on rational homology spheres are (anti-) symmetric and we compute the linking form of a 3-dimensional rational homology sphere in terms of a Heegaard splitting. Both results have been known to a larger or lesser degree, but it is difficult to find rigorous down-to-earth proofs in the literature.
Let $N$ be a prime 3-manifold that is not a closed graph manifold. Building on a result of Hongbin Sun and using a result of Asaf Hadari we show that for every $k\in\Bbb{N}$ there exists a finite cover $\tilde{N}$ of $N$ such that $|\operatorname{Tor} H_1(\tilde{N};\Bbb{Z})|>k$.
We show that fundamental groups of compact, orientable, irreducible 3-manifolds with toroidal boundary are Grothendieck rigid.
Let $f\colon M\to N$ be a proper map between two aspherical compact orientable 3-manifolds with empty or toroidal boundary. We assume that $N$ is not a closed graph-manifold. Suppose that $f$ induces an epimorphism on fundamental groups. We show that $f$ is homotopic to a homeomorphism if one of the following holds: either for any finite-index subgroup $Γ$ of $π_1(N)$ the ranks of $Γ$ and of $f_*^{-1}(Γ)$ agree, or for any finite cover $\tilde{N}$ of $N$ the Heegaard genus of $\tilde{N}$ and the Heegaard genus of the pull-back cover $\tilde{M}$ agree.
We give an elementary proof of the group law for elliptic curves using explicit formulas.
We show that the Thurston seminorms of all finite covers of an aspherical 3-manifold determine whether it is a graph manifold, a mixed 3-manifold or hyperbolic.
We give a simple obstruction for a knot to be amphichiral, in terms of the homology of the 2-fold branched cover. We work with unoriented knots, and so obstruct both positive and negative amphichirality.
We prove a decomposition formula for twisted Blanchfield pairings of 3-manifolds. As an application we show that the twisted Blanchfield pairing of a 3-manifold obtained from a 3-manifold Y with a representation $ϕ: Z[π_1(Y)] \to R$, infected by a knot J along a curve $η$ with $ϕ(η) \neq 1$, splits orthogonally as the sum of the twisted Blanchfield pairing of Y and the ordinary Blanchfield pairing of the knot J, with the latter tensored up from $Z[t,t^{-1}]$ to R.
Given a 3-manifold $Y$ and a free homotopy class in $[S^1,Y]$, we investigate the set of topological concordance classes of knots in $Y \times [0,1]$ representing the given homotopy class. The concordance group of knots in the 3-sphere acts on this set. We show in many cases that the action is not transitive, using two techniques. Our first technique uses Reidemeister torsion invariants, and the second uses linking numbers in covering spaces. In particular, we show using covering links that for the trivial homotopy class, and for any 3-manifold that is not the 3-sphere, the set of orbits is infinite. On the other hand, for the case that $Y=S^1 \times S^2$, we apply topological surgery theory to show that all knots with winding number one are concordant.
The fundamental groups of compact 3-manifolds are known to be residually finite. Feng Luo conjectured that a stronger statement is true, by only allowing finite groups of the form $PGL(2,R),$ where $R$ is some finite commutative ring with identity. We give an equivalent formulation of Luo's conjecture via faithful representations and provide various examples and a counterexample.
Given an $L^2$-acyclic connected finite $CW$-complex, we define its universal $L^2$-torsion in terms of the chain complex of its universal covering. It takes values in the weak Whitehead group $\operatorname{Wh}^w(G)$. We study its main properties such as homotopy invariance, sum formula, product formula and Poincaré duality. Under certain assumptions, we can specify certain homomorphisms from the weak Whitehead group $\operatorname{Wh}^w(G)$ to abelian groups such as the real numbers or the Grothendieck group of integral polytopes, and the image of the universal $L^2$-torsion can be identified with many invariants such as the $L^2$-torsion, the $L^2$-torsion function, twisted $L^2$-Euler characteristics and, in the case of a $3$-manifold, the dual Thurston norm polytope.
In a series of papers the authors associated to an $L^2$-acyclic group $Γ$ an invariant $\mathcal{P}(Γ)$ that is a formal difference of polytopes in the vector space $H_1(Γ;\Bbb{R})$. This invariant is in particular defined for most 3-manifold groups, for most 2-generator 1-relator groups and for all free-by-cyclic groups. In most of the above cases the invariant can be viewed as an actual polytope. In this survey paper we will recall the definition of the polytope invariant $\mathcal{P}(Γ)$ and we state some of the main properties. We conclude with a list of open problems.
Given a hyperbolic knot $K$ and any $n\geq 2$ the abelian representations and the holonomy representation each give rise to an $(n-1)$-dimensional component in the $\operatorname{SL}(n,\Bbb{C})$-character variety. A component of the $\operatorname{SL}(n,\Bbb{C})$-character variety of dimension $\geq n$ is called high-dimensional. It was proved by Cooper and Long that there exist hyperbolic knots with high-dimensional components in the $\operatorname{SL}(2,\Bbb{C})$-character variety. We show that given any non-trivial knot $K$ and sufficiently large $n$ the $\operatorname{SL}(n,\Bbb{C})$-character variety of $K$ admits high-dimensional components.