A geometrical presentation of the surface mapping class group and surgery (Q1319915)

The authors introduce the group \(T_{2n}\) of \(K\)-equivalence classes of admissible \(2n\)-tangles and show that this group \(T_{2n}\) is naturally isomorphic to the mapping class group \(M_{n,1}\) of orientable surface of genus \(n\) with one boundary component. The \(K\)-equivalence relation is modelled after the operations on framed links, known as Kirby moves. Thus their main theorem establishes a relation between two well-known constructions of 3-manifolds: one is obtained by performing surgery on framed links and the other is by gluing two handlebodies together along their boundary. As an application, they give a new proof of Kirby's theorem that two 3-manifolds obtained by surgery on links are the same iff the links are equivalent to each other under Kirby moves.