Homeomorphisms of 3-manifolds and the realization of Nielsen number (Q1848441)

Let \(M\) be a closed \(n\)-manifold. The Nielsen conjecture for homeomorphisms states that every homeomorphism \(f:M\to M\) is isotopic to a homeomorphism with exactly \(N(f)\), the Nielsen number (the number of essential fixed point classes), fixed points. For the case \(n=2\), the first author outlined a proof of the conjecture in [Bull. Am. Math. Soc., New Ser. 5, 176-178 (1981; Zbl 0475.55003)] and the details were published in \textit{B. Jiang} and \textit{J. Guo} [Pac. J. Math. 160, 67-89 (1993; Zbl 0829.55001)]. \textit{M. R. Kelly} proved in [Topology Appl. 62, No. 2, 127-143 (1995; Zbl 0893.55002)] that the Nielsen conjecture holds when \(n\geq 5\). Nothing is known about the conjecture for homeomorphisms of 4-manifolds. In this paper, the Nielsen conjecture is verified for the orientation-preserving homeomorphisms of a large class of orientable 3-manifolds. The key to Jiang's 1981 proof was the celebrated Nielsen-Thurston classification of homeomorphisms of hyperbolic surfaces into the cyclic, reducible and pseudo-Anosov types. In the present paper, the same classification is shown to hold for homeomorphisms of hyperbolic and euclidean 2-dimensional orbifolds. The authors also prove that, with certain specified exceptions, if \(f:M\to M\) is a homeomorphism of a Seifert fiber space, then there is a Seifert fibration of \(M\) such that \(f\) is isotopic to a homeomorphism that preserves its fibers. By the Jaco-Shalen-Johannson (JSJ) decomposition, \(M\) is the union of hyperbolic and Seifert fibered 3-manifolds with torus boundaries. Two types of ``standard'' homeomorphisms of 3-manifolds that exhibit convenient fixed point behavior are defined and a substantial part of the paper is devoted to demonstrating that the restriction of the homeomorphism to the JSJ pieces can be isotoped to standard ones and, moreover, the same can be done on collars of the bounding tori to form a global standard homemorphism. In common with Jiang's 1981 proof, the fixed point classes of a standard homeomorphism are connected sets and the homeomorphism can be isotoped to replace each fixed point class by a single point, which can then be eliminated if the class is not essential. As their main result, the authors establish the Nielsen conjecture for all orientation-preserving homemorphisms of closed orientable 3-manifolds that are either Haken or geometric. If Thurston's geometrization conjecture is correct, then the Nielsen Conjecture is therefore true for the orientation-preserving homemorphisms of all irreducible, orientable closed 3-manifolds. In addition to establishing this substantial portion of the Nielsen conjecture for homeomorphisms of 3-manifolds, the paper contains results that imply that many orientation-preserving homeomorphisms are isotopic to fixed point free homeomorphisms. For instance, all orientation-preserving homeomorphisms of orientable hyperbolic 3-manifolds are isotopic to fixed point free homeomorphisms. In this impressive paper, the authors use powerful techniques of 3-manifold topology to make significant progress in one of the most important areas of topological fixed point theory.