Group trisections and smooth 4-manifolds (Q1746309)

A \((g,k)\)-trisection of a smooth, closed, oriented, connected \(4\)-manifold \(X\) is a decomposition \(X = X_{1} \cup X_{2} \cup X_{3}\) such that (1) each \(X_{i}\) is diffeomorphic to \(\natural^{k} S^{1} \times B^{3}\), (2) each \(X_{i} \cap X_{j}\) with \(i \not= j\) is diffeomorphic to \(\natural^{g} S^{1} \times B^{2}\), (3) \(X_{1} \cap X_{2} \cap X_{3}\) is diffeomorphic to \(\sharp^{g} S^{1} \times S^{1} = \Sigma_{g}\). In [Geom. Topol. 20, No. 6, 3097--3132 (2016; Zbl 1372.57033)], \textit{D. T. Gay} and \textit{R. Kirby} proved that every smooth, closed, connected, oriented \(4\)-manifold has a trisection. If we fix a base point \(p\) on \(X_{1} \cap X_{2} \cap X_{3}\), the \((g,k)\)-trisection of \(X\) corresponds to a commutative cube of groups, such that one of the vertices is \(G = \pi_{1}(X,p)\), three of the vertices are free groups of rank \(k\) \(= \pi_{1}(X_{i}, p)\), three of the vertices are free groups of rank \(g\) \(= \pi_{1}(X_{i} \cap X_{j}, p)\), one of the vertices is the genus \(g\) surface group \(= \pi_{1}(X_{1} \cap X_{2} \cap X_{3}, p)\), each homomorphism is surjective and each face is a pushout. This decomposition of \(G\) is called a \((g,k)\)-trisection of \(G\). In this paper, it is shown that (Theorem 5) the above correspondence is a bijection from the set of closed, connected, oriented \(4\)-manifolds and the set of certain equivalence classes of trisections of finitely presented groups. Especially, (Corollary 6) the smooth Poincaré conjecture is reformulated to a certain statement about \((3k,k)\)-trisections of the trivial group.