High distance Heegaard splittings of 3-manifolds (Q2502983)

The paper under review gives a concrete example of an infinite sequence of Haken \(3\)-manifolds \(M_n\) with Heegaard splittings of distance larger than or equal to \(n\). Moreover, \(M_n\) with \(n \geq 3\) is hyperbolizable. \textit{J. Hempel} defined the distance in [Topology 40, No. 3, 631--657 (2001; Zbl 0985.57014)]. Let \(W_1, W_2\) be handlebodies obtained by cutting a closed orientable \(3\)-manifold along a Heegaard splitting surface \(S\). Then the distance is the length \(d\) of a minimal sequence of simple closed curves \(\gamma_0, \gamma_1, \dots, \gamma_d\) on \(S\) such that \(\gamma_{i-1} \cap \gamma_i = \emptyset\) for all \(i\) and that \(\gamma_0\), \(\gamma_d\) bound disks in \(W_1\) and \(W_2\), respectively. On the curve complex, which specialists of hyperbolic geometry are familiar with, \(d\) is the distance between two subsets of vertices associated to the handlebodies. J. Hempel showed that the distances of Heegaard splittings of Seifert fibered manifolds and manifolds containing essential tori are at most \(2\). He also proved the existence of arbitrarily high distance Heegaard splittings. The paper under review explicitly defines \(M_n\) by constructing Heegaard diagrams by iterating a \(2\)-fold Dehn twist operator. The proofs are purely combinatorial.