Vanishing structure set of Haken 3-manifolds (Q1590173)

Let \(M\) be a manifold with boundary \(\partial M\). Consider all triples \((N,\partial N, f)\), where \(N\) is a manifold, \(f:N\to M\) is a homotopy equivalence and \(f|_{\partial N}:\partial N\to\partial M\) is a homeomorphism. Two such triples \((N_i,\partial N_i,f_i)\), \(i=1,2\), are equivalent if there exists a homeomorphism \(g:N_1\to N_2\) such that the obvious diagram commutes up to homotopy relative to the boundary. The structure set \(S(M,\partial M)\) is the set of equivalence classes of such triples. Let \(M\) be a compact connected oriented Haken 3-manifold without boundary. The author gives several conditions, besides existence of a nonpositively curved metric, which guarantee that \(S(M\times{\mathbb D}^n,\partial(M\times{\mathbb D}^n))\) for \(n\geq 2\) consists of a single element.