Nielsen equivalence and trisections (Q2230972)

\textit{D. Gay} and \textit{R. Kirby} [Geom. Topol. 20, No. 6, 3097--3132 (2016; Zbl 1372.57033)] proved that every smooth, closed, oriented, connected 4-manifold admits a trisection. This is a decomposition into three 4-dimensional handlebodies glued along their boundaries with triple intersection a closed connected surface. Any two trisections of the same 4-manifold become isotopic after some number of stabilizations, an operation that increases the genera of the trisection pieces. The article under review proves the existence of 4-manifolds with non-equivalent trisections of minimal genus. More precisely, for every \(k\geq 2\), there are infinitely many manifolds with \(2^k-1\) non-diffeomorphic trisections of minimal genus equal to \(3k\). The main technique of this work is an algebraic invariant called the Nielsen class of the generating set of a group. Such an equivalence class is taken with respect to the elementary Nielsen transformations [\textit{J. Nielsen}, Math. Ann. 91, 169--209 (1924; JFM 50.0078.04)]. Nielsen classes were used before in [\textit{M. Boileau} et al., Ann. Inst. Fourier 41, No. 4, 1005--1024 (1991; Zbl 0734.57003); \textit{M. Lustig} and \textit{Y. Moriah}, Topology 30, No. 2, 191--204 (1991; Zbl 0726.55010)] to distinguish Heegaard splittings of the same 3-manifold. For a trisection of \(X=X_1\cup X_2\cup X_3\), there are three associated Nielsen classes of generators of \(\pi_1(x)\) corresponding to \(\pi_1(X_i)\), \(i=1,2,3\). The paper under review studies how the Nielsen classes of a given Heegaard splitting of a 3-manifold behave under Artin's spinning construction [\textit{E. Artin}, Abh. Math. Semin. Univ. Hamb. 4, 174--177 (1925; JFM 51.0450.02)]. The main result states that spinning a Heegaard splitting induces a correspondence between the Nielsen classes.