The topology of 3-manifolds, Heegaard distance and the mapping class group of a 2-manifold

2005/02/25 by Joan S. Birman, Birman, Joan S. · 1 citation
Mathematics · #57-02 #Advanced Operator Algebra Research #FOS: Mathematics #Geometric Topology (math.GT) #Geometric and Algebraic Topology #Homotopy and Cohomology in Algebraic Topology

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.math/0502545

openalex publication_date 2005/02/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

This article is the author's contribution to the volume "Problems on mapping class groups and related topics" which will be published in December 2006, with Benson Farb as Editor. Various individuals were invited by Farb to submit open problems which seemed interesting to them about surface mapping class groups. We singled out a particular recent development, Hempel's concept of the `Heegaard distance' of an element in the mapping class group, and used it to describe a number of open questions which relate to the correspondence between Heegaard surfaces in 3-manifolds and the mapping class group of a 2-manifold.

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