On the stable equivalence of open books in three-manifolds (Q2501679)

An open book (decomposition) for a closed oriented \(3\)-manifold \(M\) is a pair \((K,\theta)\), where the binding \(K\) is a \(1\)-dimensional submanifold and \(\theta\) is a surface fibration over the circle of the complement \(M\setminus K\) the closures of the fibres are called pages. Given an open book, it is possible to obtain a new one by plumbing a positive or negative Hopf band \(A^\pm\), i.e. a positively or negatively once twisted cylinder. This is done as follows: Choose a properly embedded simple arc in a page \(F\). A page \(F'\) of the new book is given by \(F'=F\cup A^\pm\) such that \(F\cap A^\pm\) is a rectangular regular neighbourhood of the chosen arc, which is identified with a segment of the core of \(A^\pm\), and such that the core of \(A^\pm\) bounds a disc in \(M\setminus F\). A stabilisation of an open book is an open book which is obtained by a finite sequence of plumbings. To any open book it is possible to associate an oriented plane field, in such a way that the planes are tangent to the pages outside a regular neighbourhood of the binding, while inside a tubular regular neighbourhood the plane field is determined by the form \(f(r)\, dz+r^2\, d\theta\), where \((r,\theta,z)\) are cylindrical coordinates of the neighbourhood and \(f:[0,1]\to[0,1]\) is positive near \(0\) and zero near \(1\). The main result of the paper is the following characterisation: Two open books in a given closed oriented \(3\)-manifold admit isotopic stabilisations if and only if their associated oriented plane fields are homologous. Note that every open book gives rise to a Heegaard splitting: a Heegaard surface is obtained by taking two antipodal pages. The above theorem can thus be seen as an analogue of the well known result that any two Heegaard splittings of a given closed \(3\)-manifold admit isotopic stabilisations. The authors observe that the ``only if'' part of the proof is rather straightforward. The converse is proved using properties of contact structures associated with open book decompositions. The above characterisation has the following interesting corollary: Any two fibred links in an integral homology \(3\)-sphere admit isotopic stabilisations. This follows from the fact that fibred links in integral homology \(3\)-spheres admit a unique fibration (up to isotopy) and that all plane fields are necessarily homologous. In the very special case of the \(3\)-sphere this corollary reads: Any fibred link in \({\mathbb S}^3\) can be obtained from the unknot by finitely many plumbings and deplumbings of Hopf links.