Structure of Heegaard splitting of self-amalgamated 3-manifold (Q2401745)

A Heegaard splitting of a compact orientable \(3\)-manifold \(M\) is a subdivision of \(M\) into two compression bodies, glued along one boundary component \(S\). \(S\) is assumed to be closed and orientable, and its genus is the genus of the splitting. If \(F\) is a properly embedded connected non-separating compact surface in \(M\), then \(M\) may be obtained by self-amalgamating the base manifold \(M' = cl(M-F)\). In this paper, the author investigates unstabilized Heegaard splittings and minimal genus Heegaard splittings of self-amalgamated \(3\)-manifolds. A Heegaard splitting is unstabilized if one can not find two properly embedded essential disks (one per compression body) whose boundaries intersect precisely once. The first result of this paper establishes the uniqueness (up to isotopy) of many unstabilized Heegaard splittings of a self-amalgamated closed \(3\)-manifold \(M\), under the existence of a particular Heegaard splitting of its base \(M'\). The second result states that if \(M\) is a \(3\)-manifold with non-empty boundary, the self-amalgamation of \(M'\) along an essential annulus \(A\), and \(M'\) admits a Heegaard splitting satisfying some condition, then the minimal genus Heegaard splitting of \(M\) is unique (up to isotopy). A key point in the theory of Heegaard splittings of self-amalgamated \(3\)-manifolds is that every Heegaard splitting of the base space \(M'\) induces a natural Heegaard splitting of \(M\). Such a splitting of \(M\) is called the self-amalgamated (resp. \(\partial\)-self-amalgamated) Heegaard splitting of \(M'\) along \(F\) if the two copies of \(F\) in \(M'\) are contained in the same compression body (resp. in distinct compression bodies). In the last part of this paper, the author partially addresses the question: ``When is the self-amalgamated Heegaard splitting or the \(\partial\)-self-amalgamated Heegaard splitting unstabilized?''. More precisely, the author treats the case where \(M\) is a self-amalgamation along an essential disk \(D\).