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We investigate several integer invariants of curves in 3-space. We demonstrate relationships of these invariants to crossing number and to total curvature.

A family of one-vertex triangulations of 3-manifolds, layered-triangulations, is defined. Layered-triangulations are first described for handlebodies and then extended to all 3-manifolds via Heegaard splittings. A complete and detailed analysis of layered-triangulations is given in the cases of the solid torus and lens spaces, including the classification of all normal and almost normal surfaces in these triangulations. Minimal layered-triangulations of lens spaces provide a common setting for new proofs of the classification of lens spaces admitting an embedded non orientable surface and the classification of embedded non orientable surfaces in each such lens space, as well as a new proof of the uniqueness of Heegaard splittings of lens spaces. Canonical triangulations of Dehn fillings, triangulated Dehn fillings, are constructed and applied to the study of Heegaard splittings and efficient triangulations of Dehn fillings. A new presentation of 3-manifolds as being obtained from special layered-triangulations of handlebodies with one-vertex, 2-symmetric triangulations on their boundaries, called triangulated Heegaard splittings, is defined and explored. The 1-skeleton (L-graph) of the complex determined as the quotient of the flip-complex by considering those homemorphisms of the genus g surface that extend to a homeomorphism of the genus g handlebody is used to organize much of the work. Numerous questions remain open, particularly in relation to the L-graph, 2-symmetric triangulations of a closed orientable surface, minimal layered-triangulations of genus-g-handlebodies, and the relationship of layered-triangulations to foliations., Comment: 97 pages, 32 figures; original biblio had conflict with hypertex

We prove a finiteness result for the $\partial$-patterned guts decomposition of all 3-manifolds obtained by splitting a given orientable, irreducible and $\partial$-irreducible 3-manifold along a closed incompressible surface. Then using the Thurston norm, we deduce that the JSJ-pieces of all 3-manifolds dominated by a given compact 3-manifold belong, up to homeomorphism, to a finite collection of compact 3-manifolds. We show also that any closed orientable 3-manifold dominates only finitely many integral homology spheres and any compact 3-manifolds orientable 3-manifold dominates only finitely many exterior of knots in $S^3$., Comment: 34 pages, 5 figures

Using basic properties of one-sided Heegaard splittings, a direct proof that geometrically compressible one-sided splittings of RP^3 are stabilised is given. The argument is modelled on that used by Waldhausen to show that two-sided splittings of S^3 are standard., Comment: This is the version published by Algebraic & Geometric Topology on 20 September 2006

This is the second in a series of papers in which we investigate ideal triangulations of the interiors of compact 3-manifolds with tori or Klein bottle boundaries. Such triangulations have been used with great effect, following the pioneering work of Thurston. Ideal triangulations are the basis of the computer program SNAPPEA of Weeks and the program SNAP of Coulson, Goodman, Hodgson and Neumann. Casson has also written a program to find hyperbolic structures on such 3-manifolds, by solving Thurston's hyperbolic gluing equations for ideal triangulations. In this second paper, we study the question of when a taut ideal triangulation of an irreducible atoroidal 3-manifold admits a family of angle structures. We find a combinatorial obstruction, which gives a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of angle structures for taut triangulations. The hope is that this result can be further developed to give a proof of the existence of ideal triangulations admitting (complete) hyperbolic metrics. Our main result answers a question of Lackenby. We give simple examples of taut ideal triangulations which do not admit an angle structure. Also we show that for `layered' ideal triangulations of once-punctured torus bundles over the circle, that if the manodromy is pseudo Anosov, then the triangulation admits angle structures if and only if there are no edges of degree 2. Layered triangulations are generalisations of Thurston's famous triangulation of the Figure 8 knot space. Note that existence of an angle structure easily implies that the 3-manifold has a CAT(0) or relatively word hyperbolic fundamental group., Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures

The original Smale Conjecture asserted that the inclusion of the group O(4) of isometries of the round 3-sphere S into the full diffeomorphism group Diff(S) is a homotopy equivalence. The (Generalized) Smale Conjecture asserts that the inclusion of Isom(M) into Diff(M) is a homotopy equivalence whenever M is an elliptic 3-manifold, that is, a closed Riemannian 3-manifold of constant positive curvature. We prove the Smale Conjecture for all lens spaces L(m,q), where m is at least 3.

In this paper, we will compute the dimension of the space of spun and ordinary normal surfaces in an ideal triangulation of the interior of a compact 3-manifold with incompressible tori or Klein bottle components. Spun normal surfaces have been described in unpublished work of Thurston. We also define a boundary map from spun normal surface theory to the homology classes of boundary loops of the 3-manifold and prove the boundary map has image of finite index. Spun normal surfaces give a natural way of representing properly embedded and immersed essential surfaces in a 3-manifold with tori and Klein bottle boundary [E Kang, `Normal surfaces in knot complements' (PhD thesis) and `Normal surfaces in non-compact 3-manifolds', preprint]. It has been conjectured that every slope in a simple knot complement can be represented by an immersed essential surface [M Baker, Ann. Inst. Fourier (Grenoble) 46 (1996) 1443-1449 and (with D Cooper) Top. Appl. 102 (2000) 239-252]. We finish by studying the boundary map for the figure-8 knot space and for the Gieseking manifold, using their natural simplest ideal triangulations. Some potential applications of the boundary map to the study of boundary slopes of immersed essential surfaces are discussed., Comment: Published by Geometry and Topology Monographs at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTMon7/paper10.abs.html

We present numerical visualizations of Ricci Flow of surfaces and 3-dimensional manifolds of revolution. Ricci_rot is an educational tool which visualizes surfaces of revolution moving under Ricci flow. That these surfaces tend to remain embedded in R3 is what makes direct visualization possible. The numerical lessons gained in developing this tool may be applicable to numerical simulation of Ricci flow of other surfaces. Similarly for simple 3-dimensional manifolds like the 3-sphere, with a metric which is invariant under the action of SO(3) with 2-sphere orbits, the metric can be represented by a 2-sphere of revolution, where the distance to the axis of revolution represents the radius of a 2-sphere orbit. Hence we can also visualize the behaviour of such a metric under Ricci flow. We discuss briefly why surfaces and 3-manifolds of revolution remain embedded in R3 and R4 respectively, under Ricci flow and finally indulge in some speculation about the idea of Ricci flow in the larger space of positive definite and indefinite metrics., Comment: LaTeX, 19 pages with 11 figures

We consider the problem of finding embedded closed geodesics on the two-sphere with an incomplete metric defined outside a point. Various techniques including curve shortening methods are used., Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures

0-efficient triangulations of 3-manifolds are defined and studied. It is shown that any triangulation of a closed, orientable, irreducible 3-manifold M can be modified to a 0-efficient triangulation or M can be shown to be one of the manifolds S^3, RP^3 or L(3,1). Similarly, any triangulation of a compact, orientable, irreducible, boundary-irreducible 3-manifold can be modified to a 0-efficient triangulation. The notion of a 0-efficient ideal triangulation is defined. It is shown if M is a compact, orientable, irreducible, boundary-irreducible 3-manifold having no essential annuli and distinct from the 3-cell, then the interior of M admits an ideal triangulation; furthermore, it is shown that any ideal triangulation of such a 3-manifold can be modified to a 0-efficient ideal triangulation. A 0-efficient triangulation of a closed manifold has only one vertex or the manifold is S^3 and the triangulation has precisely two vertices. 0-efficient triangulations of 3-manifolds with boundary, and distinct from the 3-cell, have all their vertices in the boundary and then just one vertex in each boundary component. As tools, we introduce the concepts of barrier surface and shrinking, as well as the notion of crushing a triangulation along a normal surface. A number of applications are given, including an algorithm to construct an irreducible decomposition of a closed, orientable 3-manifold, an algorithm to construct a maximal collection of pairwise disjoint, normal 2-spheres in a closed 3-manifold, an alternate algorithm for the 3-sphere recognition problem, results on edges of low valence in minimal triangulations of 3-manifolds, and a construction of irreducible knots in closed 3-manifolds., Comment: 83 pages, 39 figures; completely re-written version

We construct a smooth Riemannian metric on any 3-manifold with the property that there are genus zero embedded minimal surfaces of arbitrarily high Morse index., Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures

We show that a free period three action on the three-sphere is standard, i.e. the quotient is homeomorphic to a lens space. We use a minimax argument involving sweepouts., Comment: Published by Geometry and Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTVol7/paper11.abs.html

A combinatorial condition is obtained for when immersed or embedded incompressible surfaces in compact 3-manifolds with tori boundary components remain incompressible after Dehn surgery. A combinatorial characterisation of hierarchies is described. A new proof is given of the topological rigidity theorem of Hass and Scott for 3-manifolds containing immersed incompressible surfaces, as found in cubings of non-positive curvature., Comment: 21 pages. Published copy, also available at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTMon2/paper1.abs.html . Includes erratum added to the original, published 22 November 1999

This paper presents some finiteness results for the number of boundary slopes of immersed essential surfaces of given genus g in a compact 3-manifold with torus boundary. In the case of hyperbolic 3-manifolds we obtain uniform quadratic bounds in g for the number of possible slopes, independent of the 3-manifold. We also look at some related quantities, such as how many times the slopes of two such surfaces of specified genus can intersect.

We compute the phase transition curves for mesoscopic superconductors. Special emphasis is given to the limiting shape of the curve when the magnetic flux is large. We derive an asymptotic formula for the ground state of the Schr\"odinger equation in the presence of large applied flux. The expansion is shown to be sensitive to the smoothness of the domain. The theoretical results are compared to recent experiments., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure

It was shown by Bonahon-Otal and Hodgson-Rubinstein that any two genus-one Heegaard splittings of the same 3-manifold (typically a lens space) are isotopic. On the other hand, it was shown by Boileau, Collins and Zieschang that certain Seifert manifolds have distinct genus-two Heegaard splittings. In an earlier paper, we presented a technique for comparing Heegaard splittings of the same manifold and, using this technique, derived the uniqueness theorem for lens space splittings as a simple corollary. Here we use a similar technique to examine, in general, ways in which two non-isotopic genus-two Heegard splittings of the same 3-manifold compare, with a particular focus on how the corresponding hyperelliptic involutions are related., Comment: 65 pages. Published copy, also available at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTMon2/paper24.abs.html

The Generalized Smale Conjecture asserts that if M is a closed 3-manifold with constant positive curvature, then the inclusion of the group of isometries into the group of diffeomorphisms is a homotopy equivalence. For the 3-sphere, this was the classical Smale Conjecture proved by A. Hatcher. N. Ivanov proved the Generalized Smale Conjecture for the M which contain a 1-sided Klein bottle and such that no Seifert fibering is nonsingular on the complement of any vertical Klein bottle. We prove it in all remaining cases containing a one-sided Klein bottle, except for the lens space L(4,1)., Comment: 23 pages