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William Thurston's work has had a profound influence on mathematics. He connected whole mathematical subjects in entirely new ways and changed the way mathematicians think about geometry, topology, foliations, group theory, dynamical systems, and the way these areas interact. His emphasis on understanding and imagination in mathematical learning and thinking are integral elements of his distinctive legacy. This four-part collection brings together in one place Thurston's major writings, many of which are appearing in publication for the first time. Volumes I–III contain commentaries by the Editors. Volume IV includes a preface by Steven P. Kerckhoff. Volume IV contains Thurston's highly influential, though previously unpublished, 1977–78 Princeton Course Notes on the Geometry and Topology of 3-manifolds. It is an indispensable part of the Thurston collection but can also be used on its own as a textbook or for self-study.

William Thurston's work has had a profound influence on mathematics. He connected whole mathematical subjects in entirely new ways and changed the way mathematicians think about geometry, topology, foliations, group theory, dynamical systems, and the way these areas interact. His emphasis on understanding and imagination in mathematical learning and thinking are integral elements of his distinctive legacy. This four-part collection brings together in one place Thurston's major writings, many of which are appearing in publication for the first time. Volumes I–III contain commentaries by the Editors. Volume IV includes a preface by Steven P. Kerckhoff. Volume II contains William Thurston's papers on the geometry and topology of 3-manifolds, on complexity, constructions and computers, and on geometric group theory.

The author shows that the finite time type II blow up solutions for the energy critical nonlinear wave equation $ \Box u = -u^5 $ on $\mathbb R^3+1$ constructed in Krieger, Schlag, and Tataru (2009) and Krieger and Schlag (2014) are stable along a co-dimension three manifold of radial data perturbations in a suitable topology, provided the scaling parameter $\lambda (t) = t^-1-\nu $ is sufficiently close to the self-similar rate, i. e. $\nu >0$ is sufficiently small. Our method is based on Fourier techniques adapted to time dependent wave operators of the form $ -\partial _t^2 + \partial _r^2 + \frac 2r\partial _r +V(\lambda (t)r) $ for suitable monotone scaling parameters $\lambda (t)$ and potentials $V(r)$ with a resonance at zero.

The Shape of Space, Third Edition maintains the standard of excellence set by the previous editions. This lighthearted textbook covers the basic geometry and topology of two- and three-dimensional spaces—stretching students'minds as they learn to visualize new possibilities for the shape of our universe.Written by a master expositor, leading researcher in the field, and MacArthur Fellow, its informal exposition and engaging exercises appeal to an exceptionally broad audience, from liberal arts students to math undergraduate and graduate students looking for a clear intuitive understanding to supplement more formal texts, and even to laypeople seeking an entertaining self-study book to expand their understanding of space.Features of the Third Edition: Full-color figures throughout'Picture proofs'have replaced algebraic proofs Simpler handles-and-crosscaps approach to surfaces Updated discussion of cosmological applications Intuitive examples missing from many college and graduate school curricula About the Author:Jeffrey R. Weeks is a freelance geometer living in Canton, New York. With support from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and several science museums, his work spans pure mathematics, applications in cosmology and—closest to his heart—exposition for the general public.

Bordered Floer homology assigns invariants to 3-manifolds with boundary, such that the Heegaard Floer homology of a closed 3-manifold, split into two pieces, can be recovered as a tensor product of the bordered invariants of the pieces. The authors construct cornered Floer homology invariants of 3-manifolds with codimension-2 corners and prove that the bordered Floer homology of a 3-manifold with boundary, split into two pieces with corners, can be recovered as a tensor product of the cornered invariants of the pieces.

The authors construct Heegaard Floer theory for 3-manifolds with connected boundary. The theory associates to an oriented, parametrized two-manifold a differential graded algebra. For a three-manifold with parametrized boundary, the invariant comes in two different versions, one of which (type $D$) is a module over the algebra and the other of which (type $A$) is an $\mathcal A_\infty$ module. Both are well-defined up to chain homotopy equivalence. For a decomposition of a 3-manifold into two pieces, the $\mathcal A_\infty$ tensor product of the type $D$ module of one piece and the type $A$ module from the other piece is $\widehat{HF}$ of the glued manifold. As a special case of the construction, the authors specialize to the case of three-manifolds with torus boundary. This case can be used to give another proof of the surgery exact triangle for $\widehat{HF}$. The authors relate the bordered Floer homology of a three-manifold with torus boundary with the knot Floer homology of a filling.

This book is part of the series of three books arise from lectures organized by Hitoshi Murakami at RIMS, Kyoto University in the summer of 2001. The lecture series was aimed at a broad audience that included many graduate students. Its purpose lay in familiarizing the audience with the basics of 3-manifold theory and introducing some topics of current research. The first portion of the lecture series was devoted to standard topics in the theory of 3-manifolds. The middle portion was devoted to a brief study of Heegaard splittings and generalized Heegaard splittings.In the standard schematic diagram for generalized Heegaard splittings, Heegaard splittings are stacked on top of each other in a linear fashion. This can cause confusion in those cases in which generalized Heegaard splittings possess interesting connectivity properties. Fork complexes were invented in an effort to illuminate some of the more subtle issues arising in the study of generalized Heegaard splittings.

This book provides an introduction to the topological classification of smooth structurally stable diffeomorphisms on closed orientable 2- and 3-manifolds.The topological classification is one of the main problems of the theory of dynamical systems and the results presented in this book are mostly for dynamical systems satisfying Smale's Axiom A. The main results on the topological classification of discrete dynamical systems are widely scattered among many papers and surveys. This book presents these results fluidly, systematically, and for the first time in one publication. Additionally, this book discusses the recent results on the topological classification of Axiom A diffeomorphisms focusing on the nontrivial effects of the dynamical systems on 2- and 3-manifolds. The classical methods and approaches which are considered to be promising for the further research are also discussed.

This book provides an introduction to the beautiful and deep subject of filling Dehn surfaces in the study of topological 3-manifolds. This book presents, for the first time in English and with all the details, the results from the PhD thesis of the first author, together with some more recent results in the subject. It also presents some key ideas on how these techniques could be used on other subjects.Representing 3-Manifolds by Filling Dehn Surfaces is mostly self-contained requiring only basic knowledge on topology and homotopy theory. The complete and detailed proofs are illustrated with a set of more than 600 spectacular pictures, in the tradition of low-dimensional topology books. It is a basic reference for researchers in the area, but it can also be used as an advanced textbook for graduate students or even for adventurous undergraduates in mathematics. The book uses topological and combinatorial tools developed throughout the twentieth century making the volume a trip along the history of low-dimensional topology.

Due to the strong appeal and wide use of this monograph, it is now available in its third revised edition. The monograph gives a systematic treatment of 3-dimensional topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) based on the work of the author with N. Reshetikhin and O. Viro. This subject was inspired by the discovery of the Jones polynomial of knots and the Witten-Chern-Simons field theory. On the algebraic side, the study of 3-dimensional TQFTs has been influenced by the theory of braided categories and the theory of quantum groups.The book is divided into three parts. Part I presents a construction of 3-dimensional TQFTs and 2-dimensional modular functors from so-called modular categories. This gives a vast class of knot invariants and 3-manifold invariants as well as a class of linear representations of the mapping class groups of surfaces. In Part II the technique of 6j-symbols is used to define state sum invariants of 3-manifolds. Their relation to the TQFTs constructed in Part I is established via the theory of shadows. Part III provides constructions of modular categories, based on quantum groups and skein modules of tangles in the 3-space.This fundamental contribution to topological quantum field theory is accessible to graduate students in mathematics and physics with knowledge of basic algebra and topology. It is an indispensable source for everyone who wishes to enter the forefront of this fascinating area at the borderline of mathematics and physics. Contents:Invariants of graphs in Euclidean 3-space and of closed 3-manifoldsFoundations of topological quantum field theoryThree-dimensional topological quantum field theoryTwo-dimensional modular functors6j-symbolsSimplicial state sums on 3-manifoldsShadows of manifolds and state sums on shadowsConstructions of modular categories

There is a sympathy of ideas among the fields of knot theory, infinite discrete group theory, and the topology of 3-manifolds. This book contains fifteen papers in which new results are proved in all three of these fields. These papers are dedicated to the memory of Ralph H. Fox, one of the world's leading topologists, by colleagues, former students, and friends.In knot theory, papers have been contributed by Goldsmith, Levine, Lomonaco, Perko, Trotter, and Whitten. Of these several are devoted to the study of branched covering spaces over knots and links, while others utilize the braid groups of Artin.Cossey and Smythe, Stallings, and Strasser address themselves to group theory. In his contribution Stallings describes the calculation of the groups In/In+1 where I is the augmentation ideal in a group ring RG. As a consequence, one has for each k an example of a k-generator l-relator group with no free homomorphs. In the third part, papers by Birman, Cappell, Milnor, Montesinos, Papakyriakopoulos, and Shalen comprise the treatment of 3-manifolds. Milnor gives, besides important new results, an exposition of certain aspects of our current knowledge regarding the 3- dimensional Brieskorn manifolds.

The field of 3-manifold topology has made great strides forward since 1982, when Thurston articulated his influential list of questions. Primary among these is Perelman's proof of the Geometrization Conjecture, but other highlights include the Tameness Theorem of Agol and Calegari–Gabai, the Surface Subgroup Theorem of Kahn–Markovic, the work of Wise and others on special cube complexes, and finally Agol's proof of the Virtual Haken Conjecture. This book summarizes all these developments and provides an exhaustive account of the current state of the art of 3-manifold topology, especially focussing on the consequences for fundamental groups of 3-manifolds. As the first book on 3-manifold topology that incorporates the exciting progress of the last two decades, it will be an invaluable resource for researchers in the field who need a reference for these developments. It also gives a fast-paced introduction to this material – although some familiarity with the fundamental group is recommended, little other previous knowledge is assumed, and the book is accessible to graduate students. The book closes with an extensive list of open questions, which will also be of interest to graduate students and established researchers alike.

Many parallels between complex dynamics and hyperbolic geometry have emerged in the past decade. Building on work of Sullivan and Thurston, this book gives a unified treatment of the construction of fixed-points for renormalization and the construction of hyperbolic 3- manifolds fibering over the circle. Both subjects are studied via geometric limits and rigidity. This approach shows open hyperbolic manifolds are inflexible, and yields quantitative counterparts to Mostow rigidity. In complex dynamics, it motivates the construction of towers of quadratic-like maps, and leads to a quantitative proof of convergence of renormalization.

This book grew out of a graduate course on 3-manifolds and is intended for a mathematically experienced audience that is new to low-dimensional topology. The exposition begins with the definition of a manifold, explores possible additional structures on manifolds, discusses the classification of surfaces, introduces key foundational results for 3-manifolds, and provides an overview of knot theory. It then continues with more specialized topics by briefly considering triangulations of 3-manifolds, normal surface theory, and Heegaard splittings. The book finishes with a discussion of topics relevant to viewing 3-manifolds via the curve complex. With about 250 figures and more than 200 exercises, this book can serve as an excellent overview and starting point for the study of 3-manifolds.

Given a prime $p$, a group is called residually $p$ if the intersection of its $p$-power index normal subgroups is trivial. A group is called virtually residually $p$ if it has a finite index subgroup which is residually $p$. It is well-known that finitely generated linear groups over fields of characteristic zero are virtually residually $p$ for all but finitely many $p$. In particular, fundamental groups of hyperbolic $3$-manifolds are virtually residually $p$. It is also well-known that fundamental groups of $3$-manifolds are residually finite. In this paper the authors prove a common generalization of these results: every $3$-manifold group is virtually residually $p$ for all but finitely many $p$. This gives evidence for the conjecture (Thurston) that fundamental groups of $3$-manifolds are linear groups.

This text investigates a natural question arising in the topological theory of $3$-manifolds, and applies the results to give new information about the deformation theory of hyperbolic $3$-manifolds. It is well known that some compact $3$-manifolds with boundary admit homotopy equivalences that are not homotopic to homeomorphisms. We investigate when the subgroup $\mathcal{R}(M)$ of outer automorphisms of $\pi_1(M)$ which are induced by homeomorphisms of a compact $3$-manifold $M$ has finite index in the group $\operatorname{Out}(\pi_1(M))$ of all outer automorphisms. This question is completely resolved for Haken $3$-manifolds. It is also resolved for many classes of reducible $3$-manifolds and $3$-manifolds with boundary patterns, including all pared $3$-manifolds. The components of the interior $\operatorname{GF}(\pi_1(M))$ of the space $\operatorname{AH}(\pi_1(M))$ of all (marked) hyperbolic $3$-manifolds homotopy equivalent to $M$ are enumerated by the marked homeomorphism types of manifolds homotopy equivalent to $M$, so one may apply the topological results above to study the topology of this deformation space. We show that $\operatorname{GF}(\pi_1(M))$ has finitely many components if and only if either $M$ has incompressible boundary, but no “double trouble,” or $M$ has compressible boundary and is “small.” (A hyperbolizable $3$-manifold with incompressible boundary has double trouble if and only if there is a thickened torus component of its characteristic submanifold which intersects the boundary in at least two annuli.) More generally, the deformation theory of hyperbolic structures on pared manifolds is analyzed. Some expository sections detail Johannson's formulation of the Jaco-Shalen-Johannson characteristic submanifold theory, the topology of pared $3$-manifolds, and the deformation theory of hyperbolic $3$-manifolds. An epilogue discusses related open problems and recent progress in the deformation theory of hyperbolic $3$-manifolds.

This monograph derives direct and concrete relations between colored Jones polynomials and the topology of incompressible spanning surfaces in knot and link complements. Under mild diagrammatic hypotheses, we prove that the growth of the degree of the colored Jones polynomials is a boundary slope of an essential surface in the knot complement. We show that certain coefficients of the polynomial measure how far this surface is from being a fiber for the knot; in particular, the surface is a fiber if and only if a particular coefficient vanishes. We also relate hyperbolic volume to colored Jones polynomials. Our method is to generalize the checkerboard decompositions of alternating knots. Under mild diagrammatic hypotheses, we show that these surfaces are essential, and obtain an ideal polyhedral decomposition of their complement. We use normal surface theory to relate the pieces of the JSJ decomposition of the complement to the combinatorics of certain surface spines (state graphs). Since state graphs have previously appeared in the study of Jones polynomials, our method bridges the gap between quantum and geometric knot invariants.

Progress in low-dimensional topology has been very quick in the last three decades, leading to the solutions of many difficult problems. Among the earlier highlights of this period was Casson's λ-invariant that was instrumental in proving the vanishing of the Rohlin invariant of homotopy 3-spheres. The proof of the three-dimensional Poincaré conjecture has rendered this application moot but hardly made Casson's contribution less relevant: in fact, a lot of modern day topology, including a multitude of Floer homology theories, can be traced back to his λ-invariant. The principal goal of this book, now in its second revised edition, remains providing an introduction to the low-dimensional topology and Casson's theory; it also reaches out, when appropriate, to more recent research topics. The book covers some classical material, such as Heegaard splittings, Dehn surgery, and invariants of knots and links. It then proceeds through the Kirby calculus and Rohlin's theorem to Casson's invariant and its applications, and concludes with a brief overview of recent developments. The book will be accessible to graduate students in mathematics and theoretical physics familiar with some elementary algebraic and differential topology, including the fundamental group, basic homology theory, transversality, and Poincaré duality on manifolds.

The Geometrisation Conjecture was proposed by William Thurston in the mid 1970s in order to classify compact 3-manifolds by means of a canonical decomposition along essential, embedded surfaces into pieces that possess geometric structures. It contains the famous Poincaré Conjecture as a special case. In 2002, Grigory Perelman announced a proof of the Geometrisation Conjecture based on Richard Hamilton's Ricci flow approach, and presented it in a series of three celebrated arXiv preprints. Since then there has been an ongoing effort to understand Perelman's work by giving more detailed and accessible presentations of his ideas or alternative arguments for various parts of the proof. This book is a contribution to this endeavour. Its two main innovations are first a simplified version of Perelman's Ricci flow with surgery, which is called Ricci flow with bubbling-off, and secondly a completely different and original approach to the last step of the proof. In addition, special effort has been made to simplify and streamline the overall structure of the argument, and make the various parts independent of one another. A complete proof of the Geometrisation Conjecture is given, modulo pre-Perelman results on Ricci flow, Perelman's results on the ℒ-functional and κ-solutions, as well as the Colding–Minicozzi extinction paper. The book can be read by anyone already familiar with these results, or willing to accept them as black boxes. The structure of the proof is presented in a lengthy introduction, which does not require knowledge of geometric analysis. The bulk of the proof is the existence theorem for Ricci flow with bubbling-off, which is treated in parts I and II. Part III deals with the long time behaviour of Ricci flow with bubbling-off. Part IV finishes the proof of the Geometrisation Conjecture.

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This monograph, now in its second revised edition, provides a systematic treatment of topological quantum field theories in three dimensions, inspired by the discovery of the Jones polynomial of knots, the Witten-Chern-Simons field theory, and the theory of quantum groups. The author, one of the leading experts in the subject, gives a rigorous and self-contained exposition of fundamental algebraic and topological concepts that emerged in this theory.