Acta Applicandae Mathematicae 75: 5154, 2003.

2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

51

The Complexity of 2-Fold Branched

Coverings of a 3-Sphere

O. M. DAVYDOV
Chelyabinsk State Agricultural University, Chelyabinsk 454080, Russia
(Received: 23 December 2001)
Abstract. Complexity is a function which maps a set of 3-manifolds to a set of nonnegative integers.
This function has some natural properties (finiteness, additivity, etc.) and it shows, in some sense
how complex the manifold is. This function seems important for the classification of 3-manifolds.
We evaluate of the complexity of 2-fold branched coverings of a 3-sphere. We present a theoretical
estimate and compare it with experimental data.
Mathematics Subject Classifications (2000): 57M12, 57M25.
Key words: branched coverings, knots, three-dimensional manifolds.

1. Introduction
A compact polyhedron P is called almost simple if the link of each of its points
can be embedded into the complete graph  with four vertices (one-dimensional
skeleton of standard 3-simplex). The points whose links are homeomorphic to 
are called vertices of P .
Suppose M 3 is a closed three-dimensional manifold. A compact two-dimensional subpolyhedron P Int M 3 is called a spine of M 3 if the complement of
some open ball in M 3 is homeomorphic to P [0; 1).
The complexity c(M 3 ) of a closed three-dimensional manifold M 3 is the integer k such that if M 3 posseses an almost simple spine with k vertices and has no
almost simple spines with a smaller number of vertices.
Suppose L is a link in the three-dimensional sphere S 3 . Denote by Mn (L) the
n-fold branched covering of S 3 branched over L.
The following theorem was obtained by S. V. Matveev:
THEOREM (Matveev [1]). Suppose M is the k-fold covering of a three-dimensional

kc(M).
manifold M. Then c(M)
The next statement follows from Matveevs theorem:

The work is supported by RBFR Grant and by Grant of Ministry of Education. The author

thanks S. V. Matveev and M. A. Ovchinnikov for useful discussions.

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O. M. DAVYDOV

THEOREM 1 (Davydov [4]). Suppose a link L S 3 possesses a projection with k

intersection points. Then c(Mn (L))
4nk.
The estimation is quite rough. The aim of this paper is to decrease this estimation in the case of 2-fold branched coverings of a 3-sphere.
2. An Estimation of the Complexity of 2-Fold Branched Coverings of a
Three-Dimensional Sphere S 3
THEOREM 2. Suppose a link L S 3 possesses a projection with k intersection
points. Then c(M2 (L))
4k.
Let L be a link in S 3 . Consider a two-dimensional sphere S 2 S 3 and a projection of the link L on the sphere S 2 . Assume that k  2, i.e. the projection contains
at least two intersection points.
For every intersection point xi (i = 1, . . . , n) fix a neighbourhood U
(xi ) S 2
on the projection. The link L can be presented as a union of arcs ( 2n
i=1 ai )

2n
( i=1 bi ), where ai are the arcs whose projections lie
in U (xi ), and bi are the
connected components of the complement L (S 2 \ ( ni=1 U (xi )).

Note that the
complement in S 2 to the union of fixed neighbourhoods S 2 \ ( ni=1 U (xi )) is
decomposed by projections of b1 , . . . , b2n to the union of (n + 2) 2-components.
Suppose that every neighbourhood U (xi ) is a circle. Let a diameter of the circle
be the projection of arc which lies in U (xi ) and is drawn without interruption
on the link diagram. Define an involution on U (xi ) as the symmetry over the
diameter.
Consider another 2-sphere S12 and suppose : S 2 S12 is a homeomorphism.
For each i = 1, . . . , n identify the neighbourhoods U (xi ) S 2 and (U (xi )) S12
such that point x S 2 is identified with the point (x). As a result we obtain a
surface K of genus n 1 with n attached membranes (2-cells) 1 , . . . , n . There
are n closed pairwise disjoint curves v1 , . . . , vn on the surface K, which are formed
by arcs bi = prS 2 bi and their images under the map .
As we attach 2-cells along the curves v1 , . . . , vn we obtain an almost simple polyhedron. The vertices of the polyhedron are the points of intersection of
the curves vi with boundaries of the membranes. The remaining points of those
boundaries form the edges of the polyhedron.
Let us show that one can change a membrane and a 2-cell on the surface
K S 2 such that = . Assume the opposite: for any membrane and
2-cell K S 2 = . But it is clear that every membrane adjoins only
to four distinct 2-cells on the surface K S 2 . If the number of arcs bi = prS 2 bi is
greater than 2, then the number of distinct 2-cells is greater than 4. Thus if n > 2
we obtain a contradiction.
So choose a membrane and a 2-cell on the surface K S 2 such that
= . Note that in this case () = . Puncture 2-cells , and ().
After that the vertices which lie on the boundaries of the punctured cells become

2-FOLD BRANCHED COVERINGS OF A 3-SPHERE

53

interior to points of edges and other points of boundaries , and () become

nonsingular points of 2-cells.
After the puncture we obtain an almost simple polyhedron P such that the
boundary of its regular neigbourhood U (P ) is a 2-sphere.
LEMMA. The two-dimensional polyhedron P is an almost simple spine of 2-fold
branched covering of S 3 over the link L.
Define the involution on the surface K such that |S 2 K = and |S12 K =
.
Extend the involution to 2-cells: the membranes and the cells attached along
curves vi . The involution is already defined on the boundaries of the cells and
takes the boundaries to themselves.
Let be the cell of considered type. Choose a point r Int , and for each
point x extend by a homeomorphism of segments r x and r (x).
Thus the involution can be extended to the polyhedron P and its regular
neighbourhood U (P ). Now it is necessary to extend to the complement ball
M \ U (P ). Choose a point t Int(M \ U (P )) and for each point x U (P )
extend by a homeomorphism of the segments tx and t (x).
The quotient space of the polyhedron P by the map is a disk P / = S 2 \ D 2 .
Therefore, it is clear that the quotient space of the regular neigbourhood U (P )/
is a three-dimensional ball. The quotient space of the complement ball M \ U (P ))
by the map is also a three-dimensional ball. Therefore M/ = S 3 .
The fixed point set of the map in M is the union of proper arcs (diameters)
of the membranes and the 2-cells bounded by curves vi (i = 1, . . . , n), and also a
proper arc (diameter) of the complement ball. It is clear that the union of those arcs
is isotopic to L. The natural map M M/ is a projection of the 2-fold branched
covering of S 3 over the link L.
The lemma is proved.
The proof of the theorem is complete.
1

3. An Experimental Estimation of the Complexity of 2-Fold Branched

Coverings of S 3 Branched over Simple Knots with no more than Nine
Intersection Points
Using the presented way for constructing almost simple spines of 2-fold branched
covering of S 3 we made a computer program which allows to estimate the complexity of those spaces. This program not only counts the number of vertices
but tries to simplify obtained almost simple spine by Matveev moves (presented
in [2]).
Table I contains the upper bounds of the complexity c(M2 (L)) where L is a
simple knot with
9 crossing points on a diagram. The table allows us to make a
statement.

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O. M. DAVYDOV

Table I.
Number of
intersection points L

Upper bound
of c(M2 (L))

3
4
5
6
7
8
9

0
1
2
3
4
11
14

EXPERIMENTAL FACT. Suppose L is a simple knot having a projection with

k
9 intersection points. Then c(M2 (L))
2k 4.

References
1.
2.
3.
4.

Matveev, S. V.: Complexity theory of three-dimensional manifolds, Acta Appl. Math. 19 (1990),
101130.
Matveev, S. V.: Generalized graph manifolds and their effective recognition, Sb. Math. 189(10)
(1998), 15171531.
Davydov, O. M.: Construction of special spines of 2-fold branched coverings of S 3 , To appear
in Vestnik ChelGU, Ser. Math. Mech. (Russian).
Davydov, O. M.: On complexity of two-fold branched coverings spaces, International Conference Monodromy in Geometry and Differential Equations, Abstracts, Moscow, 2001,
pp. 1718.