Universal coverings of PL-manifolds via coloured graphs (Q1195608)

The authors use the representation of piecewise linear manifolds by means of edge-coloured graphs [see, e.g., \textit{M. Ferri, C. Gagliardi} and \textit{L. Grasselli}, Aequationes Math. 31, 121-141 (1986; Zbl 0623.57012)]. This approach together with some results concerning universal covering maps allow one to construct an infinite ball complex \(P(n)\), \(n>1\), such that every orientable PL \(n\)-manifold is a quotient of the polyhedron underlying \(P(n)\) under the action of a finite index subgroup of a certain Fuchsian group. Then the authors introduce a combinatorial invariant of a closed connected PL manifold \(M\), called the type of \(M\), and prove some results about the calculation of this invariant for surfaces and manifolds of dimension 3.