A new decomposition theorem for 3-manifolds (Q1856418)

This paper is concerned with compact (possibly non-orientable) 3-manifolds with (possibly empty) boundary consisting of tori and Klein bottles. The authors generalize the notion of complexity of manifolds introduced by \textit{S. V. Matveev} [ Acta Appl. Math. 19, No.2, 101-130 (1990; Zbl 0724.57012)], extending it to non-closed (possibly non-orientable) manifolds. They consider pairs \((M,X)\) where \(M\) is a \(3\)-manifold, and \(X\subset\partial M\) is a trivalent graph such that each connected component of \(\partial M-X\) is an open disk. With this extra structure, the complexity \(c(M,X)\) is additive under connected sum. When \(M\) is closed (so that \(X=\emptyset\)), irreducible, \(P^2\)-irreducible and different from \(S^3,L_{3,1},P^3\), its complexity is equal to the minimal number of tetrahedra in a triangulation of \(M\). Moreover, given any \(n\geq 0\), there are only finitely many irreducible and \(P^2\)-irreducible closed manifolds having complexity \(n\). A decomposition theorem for irreducible and \(P^2\)-irreducible pairs \((M,X)\) along tori and Klein bottles, such that the complexity is additive on this splitting, is proved. This result leads to an algorithm which classifies 3-manifolds of any given complexity. This algorithm has been already implemented by the authors, and the classification has been obtained, in the orientable case, up to complexity 9.