Incompressible surfaces in handlebodies and isotopies (Q2426514)

Let \(M\) be a 3-dimensional orientable differentiable manifold with or without boundary and let \(S\subset M\) be a properly embedded surface, i.e., the interior (resp. the boundary) of \(S\) is contained in the interior (resp. the boundary) of \(M\), \(S\) is transverse to \(\partial M\), and the intersection of \(S\) with a compact subset of \(M\) is compact in \(S\). A compressible disk for \(S\subset M\) is an embedded disk \(D\subset M\) such that \(\partial D\subset S\), \(\text{Int\,}D\subset M\setminus S\) and \(\partial D\) is an essential loop in \(S\), i.e., the map \(\partial D\to S\) induces an injection between the fundamental groups. A properly embedded surface \(S\subset M\) is incompressible if there are no compressible disks for \(S\) and no component of \(S\) is a sphere that bounds a ball. Let \(M\) be a handlebody of genus \(n\). The authors prove that every properly embedded incompressible surface in \(M\) can be constructed by a simple canonical gluing process where the pieces are disks. This construction does not always produce an incompressible surface. A simple sufficient condition is given in the paper which asserts that the result of the gluing process is incompressible. Then the authors analyze the gluing process in the construction of properly embedded surfaces in \(M\), and show that the isotopy class of the resulting surface is determined by the components (which are disks and stripes) that are glued together to form the surface. Finally, a number of examples (known and new) complete the paper.