Surfaces of Section for Seifert fibrations (Q2066768)

Consider a Seifert manifold given by a closed oriented 3-manifold \(M\) endowed with a Seifert fibration \(M\to B\) over a closed oriented surface \(B\). With these orientability assumptions, by a classical result of \textit{D. B. A. Epstein} [Ann. Math. (2) 95, 66--82 (1972; Zbl 0231.58009)], the fibration is given by an action of the circle. This structure is determined by its Seifert invariants, \(M=M(g;(\alpha_1,\beta_1),\dots,(\alpha_n,\beta_n))\), where \(g\) is the genus of \(B\), the \(\alpha_i\in\mathbb Z^+\) are the multiplicities of the singular fibres, and every \(\beta_i\in\mathbb Z\) is coprime with \(\alpha_i\) and describes the local behaviour around the corresponding singular fibre; actually, regular fibres may be also used in this description, and they correspond to the case \(\alpha_i=1\). The Euler number of the Seifert fibration is defined as \(e=-\sum_i\beta_i/\alpha_i\). Two Seifert invariants determine the same Seifert manifold if and only if they correspond by a sequence of the following operations: permuting the pairs \((\alpha_i,\beta_i)\); adding a pair \((1,0)\); and replacing every \((\alpha_i,\beta_i)\) with \((\alpha_i,\beta_i+k_i\alpha_i)\), where the \(k_i\in\mathbb Z\) satisfy \(\sum_ik_i=0\). A global surface of section is an embedded compact surface \(\Sigma\subset M\) whose boundary \(\partial\Sigma\) is a union of fibres and whose interior intersects all other fibres transversely. The regular fibres intersecting the interior of \(\Sigma\) have the same number \(d\) of intersection points; the term a \(d\)-section is also used. Orient \(\Sigma\) so that its interior has positive intersection with the fibres. Then \(\Sigma\) is said to be positive if the induced orientation of its boundary agrees with the orientation of the fibres. The main theorem of the paper characterizes the existence of a positive \(d\)-section \(\Sigma\) in terms of the Seifert invariants; in that case, \(\Sigma\) is unique up to isotopy. Moreover the result relates the Seifert invariants, the Euler number \(e\), the genus of \(\Sigma\), and the number of connected components of \(\Sigma\) and \(\partial\Sigma\). As a corollary, every Seifert manifold (with \(e\le0\)) admits a (positive) \(d\)-section for some \(d\in\mathbb Z^+\). The authors also describe the positive \(d\)-sections for all Seifert fibrations of \(S^3\), where the bases are weighted projective lines, and the \(d\)-sections are algebraic surfaces in weighted projective planes. These results generalize previous results for the case of Reeb dynamics.