Simple stable maps of 3-manifolds into surfaces (Q1918439)

The main purpose of this interesting paper is to prove that a closed orientable 3-manifold \(M\) admits a simple stable map into the plane if and only if it is a graph manifold. The global topology of \(M\), when it is the source manifold of a stable map \(f\) in a 2-manifold, is analyzed by using the notion of Stein factorization of \(f\). It is proved that \(M\) is a graph manifold. The most important part of the paper is the construction of a simple stable map for every graph manifold. The author makes this by using the decomposition into \(S^1\)-bundle pieces and by gluing the bundle projections. Some restrictions on the graph links which arise as the singular sets of simple stable maps are also deduced and it is showed that, for every graph manifold and every integer \(n\geq 1\), there exist infinitely many \(n\)-component graph links which cannot arise as the singular set of a simple stable map. The author defines an equivalence relation between simple stable maps and shows that the equivalence class of such a map is completely determined by the graph link which consists of the singular set and a certain set of regular fibers. Lastly, the author proposes a knot theory in an arbitrary 3-manifold using stable maps in place of the usual projection \(\mathbb{R}^3 \to\mathbb{R}^2\).