Efficient triangulations and boundary slopes

Birch Bryant, William Jaco, J. Hyam Rubinstein

Published 2020-06-25Version 1

For a compact, irreducible, $\partial$-irreducible, an-annular bounded 3-manifold $M\ne\mathbb{B}^3$, then any triangulation $\mathcal{T}$ of $M$ can be modified to an ideal triangulation $\mathcal{T}^*$ of $\stackrel{\circ}{M}$. We use the inverse relationship of crushing a triangulation along a normal surface and that of inflating an ideal triangulation to introduce and study boundary-efficient triangulations and end-efficient ideal triangulations. We prove that the topological conditions necessary for a compact 3-manifold $M$ admitting an annular-efficient triangulation are sufficient to modify any triangulation of $M$ to a boundary-efficient triangulation which is also annular-efficient. From the proof we have for any ideal triangulation $T^*$ and any inflation $\mathcal{T}_{\Lambda}$, there is a bijective correspondence between the closed normal surfaces in $\mathcal{T}^*$ and the closed normal surfaces in $\mathcal{T}_{\Lambda}$ with corresponding normal surfaces being homeomorphic. It follows that for an ideal triangulation $\mathcal{T}^*$ that is $0$-efficient, $1$-efficient, or end-efficient, then any inflation $\mathcal{T}_{\Lambda}$ of $\mathcal{T}^*$ is $0$-efficient, $1$-efficient, or $\partial$-efficient, respectively. There are algorithms to decide if a given triangulation or ideal triangulation of a $3$-manifold is one of these efficient triangulations. Finally, it is shown that for an annular-efficient triangulation, there are only a finite number of boundary slopes for normal surfaces of a bounded Euler characteristic; hence, in a compact, orientable, irreducible, $\partial$-irreducible, and an-annular $3$-manifold, there are only finitely many boundary slopes for incompressible and $\partial$-incompressible surfaces of a bounded Euler characteristic.