An enumeration of surfaces in four-space (Q1804196)

It is known that each isotopy class of a closed smooth (not necessarily connected) surface \(F\) in \(\mathbb{R}^4\) can be represented by a four-valent graph \(\widetilde D\) in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) with labelled vertices (the ``zero-level'' of a special movie-picture presentation). A diagram \(D\) of \(F\) is a regular projection of \(\widetilde D\) in \(\mathbb{R}^2\). The ch-index of \(D\) is defined by \(c(D)+h(\widetilde D)\), where \(c(D)\) is the number of crossings and \(h(\widetilde D)\) is the number of four-valent vertices. The ch-index of \(F\) is the minimal ch-index of all diagrams of \(F\). The author gives a discussion of this invariant and its properties. Ideas from graph theory, in analogy to the use of graph theory in usual knot theory, can be applied to construct tables of knotted surfaces with ch-index 10 or less. These are distinguished by their first Alexander ideals.