Equivalence relations for homology cylinders and the core of the Casson invariant (Q2847201)

A homology cobordism over a compact orientable surface \(\Sigma\) with one boundary component is a compact orientable \(3\)-manifold \(M\) along with two oriented embeddings \(m^{\pm}: \Sigma \to M\) such that \(m^{\pm}\) is a homology isomorphism, \(\partial_{+}(M)=m^{+}(\Sigma)\) and \(\partial_{-}(M)=m^{-}(\Sigma)\). A homology cobordism is called a homology cylinder when \((m^{-})_{*}^{-1} \circ (m^{+})_{*}\) is the identity on \(H_{1}(\Sigma; {\mathrm Z})\).NEWLINENEWLINEIn this paper, Habiro's \(A_{k}\)-equivalence is called \(Y_{k}\)-equivalence [\textit{K. Habiro}, Geom. Topol. 4, 1--83 (2000; Zbl 0941.57015)]. The following four results are proved. The authors prove the characterization of the \(Y_{3}\)-equivalence relation on the homology cylinder \(\Gamma\) in Theorem A, give a diagrammatic description of the group \(\Gamma/Y_{3}\) and deduce certain properties of this group. The authors define the \(J_{k}\)-equivalence relation among homology cylinders and characterize the \(J_{2}\)-equivalence and the \(J_{3}\)-equivalence relations in Theorems B and C. The authors extend Morita's definition of the core of the Casson invariant [\textit{S. Morita}, Topology 28, No.3, 305-323 (1989; Zbl 0684.57008) and ibid. 30, No. 4, 603--621 (1991; Zbl 0747.57010)] to the monoid in Theorem D.