No label defined (Q3972222)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0701.00019.] The author is interested in the following question: Can each acyclic 2- complex be embedded in \(S^ 4\) with simply-connected complement? He proves that if \(P\) is a finite presentation of a group with the same number of generators as relations and such that the relators abelianize to the generators, then the standard 2-complex \(K_ P\) modeled on \(P\) has an embedding in \(S^ 4\) with contractible complement. This is done by showing that if \(P\) is any finite presentation and if one chooses the ``simplest'' embedding of \(K_ P\) in \(S^ 4\), then the closed complement of a regular neighborhood of \(K_ P\) in \(S^ 4\) collapses to a 2-complex \(K_{P^*}\), where \(P^*\) can easily be described in terms of \(P\).