The complexity of orientable graph manifolds (Q2075169)

One of the natural problems in mathematics is the classification of various mathematical objects: the classification of groups in group theory, the classification of knots in knot theory, the classification of manifolds in low-dimensional topology, and so on. In order to classify mathematical objects of a certain nature, it is necessary to have some arithmetic characteristics describing the complexity of these objects. This is in order to classify objects going from ``simpler'' objects to ``difficult'' objects. To classify algebraic systems (groups, quandles, braces, etc.), the order of the algebraic system, i.e. the number of elements in this algebraic system, is used as such arithmetic characteristic. To classify knots and links, the number of intersections in a minimal diagram representing this link is used as such an arithmetic characteristic. In low dimensional topology, the complexity of manifolds, which was introduced by \textit{S. V. Matveev} [Acta Appl. Math. 19, No. 2, 101--130 (1990; Zbl 0724.57012)], is used to classify manifolds. The authors of the paper under review give an upper bound for the Matveev complexity of the whole class of closed connected orientable prime graph manifolds. They also prove that this bound is sharp for all 14502 graph manifolds of the Recogniser catalogue.