Sphere theorem (3-manifolds)

This article is about embeddings of 2-spheres. For the sphere theorem in Riemannian geometry, see Sphere theorem.

In mathematics, in the topology of 3-manifolds, the sphere theorem of Papakyriakopoulos (1957) gives conditions for elements of the second homotopy group of a 3-manifold to be represented by embedded spheres.

One example is the following:

Let $M$ be an orientable 3-manifold such that $\pi _{2}(M)$ is not the trivial group. Then there exists a non-zero element of $\pi _{2}(M)$ having a representative that is an embedding $S^{2}\to M$ .

The proof of this version can be based on transversality methods, see Batude below.

Another more general version (also called the projective plane theorem due to Epstein) is:

Let $M$ be any 3-manifold and $N$ a $\pi _{1}(M)$ -invariant subgroup of $\pi _{2}(M)$ . If $f\colon S^{2}\to M$ is a general position map such that $[f]\notin N$ and $U$ is any neighborhood of the singular set $\Sigma (f)$ , then there is a map $g\colon S^{2}\to M$ satisfying

$[g]\notin N$ ,
$g(S^{2})\subset f(S^{2})\cup U$ ,
$g\colon S^{2}\to g(S^{2})$ is a covering map, and
$g(S^{2})$ is a 2-sided submanifold (2-sphere or projective plane) of $M$ .

quoted in Hempel (p. 54)

References

Batude, J. L. (1971). "Singularité générique des applications différentiables de la 2-sphère dans une 3-variété différentiable". Annales de l'Institut Fourier. 21 (3): 151–172.

Epstein, D. B. A. (1961). "Projective planes in 3-manifolds". Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, III Ser. 11 (1): 469–484. doi:10.1112/plms/s3-11.1.469.

Hempel, J. (1978). 3-manifolds. Princeton University Press.

C. Papakyriakopoulos (1957). "On Dehn's lemma and asphericity of knots". Annals of Mathematics. Annals of Mathematics. 66 (1): 1–26. doi:10.2307/1970113. JSTOR 1970113.

Whitehead, J. H. C. (1958). "On 2-spheres in 3-manifolds". Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 64 (4): 161–166. doi:10.1090/S0002-9904-1958-10193-7.

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