A general theory of orbifolds, and essential 2-suborbifolds respecting graph products (Q284607)

This paper proves several analogous results familiar from the Culler-Shalen-Morgan theory for 3-manifolds [\textit{M. Culler} and \textit{P. B. Shalen}, Ann. Math. (2), No. 117, 109--146 (1983; Zbl 0529.57005); \textit{J. W. Morgan} (ed.) and \textit{H. Bass} (ed.), The Smith conjecture. Pure and Applied Mathematics, 112. Orlando etc.: Academic Press, Inc. (1984; Zbl 0599.57001)] in the case of 3-orbifolds. In prior work [\textit{Y. Takeuchi} and \textit{M. Yokoyama}, Topology Appl. 95, No. 2, 129--153 (1999; Zbl 0924.57013); ibid. 124, No. 1, 103--127 (2002; Zbl 1025.57004)], the author and others found incompressible, non-boundary-parallel 2-suborbifolds realizing a given algebraic product of a 3-orbifold's fundamental group. In this paper, the author directly addresses the question of finding such 2-suborbifold decompositions in the case when a 3-orbifold's fundamental group admits a simplicial action on a tree. In particular, the main result of the paper is: Theorem: Let \(M\) be a good, compact, connected, orientable 3-orbifold, and suppose that \(\pi_{1}(M,x)\) has a nontrivial product (for some \(x\) not contained in the singular set of \(M\)). Then \(M\) admits a non-empty system of incompressible, non-boundary-parallel 2-suborbifolds for which each component in \(M\) of the complement of this system has fundamental group contained in a vertex group with respect to the product. One result that follows directly from this is that any action without edge inversions of the fundamental group of such a 3-orbifold on a simplicial tree yields a system of incompressible, non-boundary-parallel 2-suborbifolds for which the fundamental group of each complementary component fixes a vertex of the tree.