Surface cubications mod flips (Q2480753)

A cubical complex is a finite dimensional complex \(C\) consisting of Euclidean cubes, such that the intersection of two of its cubes is a finite union of cubes from \(C\), once a cube is in \(C\) then all its faces belong to \(C\) and each point has a neighbourhood intersecting only finitely many cubes of \(C\). It is well known that any triangulated manifold \(M\) admits a cubication, i.e. a cubical complex that is homeomorphic to \(M\). In analogy with what happens for bistellar moves on PL-triangulations (see [\textit{U. Pachner}, Discrete Math. 81, No. 1, 37--47 (1990; Zbl 0698.52003); Eur. J. Comb. 12, No. 2, 129--145 (1991; Zbl 0729.52003)]), N. Habegger asked (see [Problems in low-dimensional topology (Edited by Rob Kirby). Geometric topology. 1993 Georgia international topology conference, August 2--13, 1993, Athens, GA, USA. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. AMS/IP Stud. Adv. Math. 2(pt.2), 35--473 (1997; Zbl 0888.57014)]) whether two PL-cubication of the same PL-manifold are related by a sequence of the so called (cubical) flips, which consist of excising \(B\) and replacing it by \(B^{\prime}\), \(B\) and \(B'\) being complementary balls (union of cubes) in the boundary of the standard \(n\)-cube. The author has already proved in [Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 32, No. 5, 681--700 (1999; Zbl 0934.57027)] and [Low dimensional topology (Edited by Hanna Nencka), Proceedings of a conference, Contemp. Math. 233, 20--43 (1999; Zbl 0941.57023)] that, in general, there are topological obstructions for two cubications being flip equivalent. The present paper solves the problem in the case of compact surfaces, possibly with boundary. By making use of methods from geometric topology and Morse theory, the set of marked cubications of the compact surface \(\Sigma\) with prescribed boundary mod. cubical flips is proved to be in one-to-one correspondence with the elements of \({\mathbb Z}{\mathbb Z}_2 \oplus H_1(\Sigma, \partial \Sigma; {\mathbb Z}{\mathbb Z}_2).\)