Topological symmetry groups of graphs embedded in the 3-sphere (Q2483783)

For a graph embedded in the 3-sphere there are two natural symmetry groups: On the one hand we have the abstract automorphism group Aut and on the other hand the group TSG\(_+\) of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of the ambient 3-sphere preserving the graph. In general the latter is much smaller than the former. In the paper their relationship is studied quite extensively. By Theorem 1 TSG\(_+\) can be a simple group only in the cases of the alternating group or a cyclic group of prime order. Theorem 2 states that for a 3-connected embedded graph TSG\(_+\) is isomorphic to a finite subgroup of the group of orientation preserving diffeomorphisms of the 3-sphere. By Theorem 3 every finite subgroup of the diffeomorphism group can be realized by an embedding of a complete bipartite graph \(K_{n,n}\) for some \(n\). The proofs are quite involved and make use of group theory, graph theory and topology.