No label defined (Q4037033)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0754.00013.] This paper was motivated by \textit{J. Boyle}'s theorem on unknotting of 2- complexes, rel 1-skeleton, in \(S^ 3\) [Topology Appl. 25, 285-299 (1987; Zbl 0614.57012)]. The authors improve and simplify that theorem by proving the following: let \(M\) be a connected, finite, 2-dimensional PL cell complex such that its 1-skeleton \(M^{(1)}\) remains connected after removing the boundary of any (single) 2-cell; then any two PL embeddings of \(M\) into \(S^ 3\) which agree on \(M^{(1)}\) are ambiently isotopic keeping \(M^{(1)}\) fixed (here \(S^ 3\) cannot be replaced by the Euclidean 3-space \(E^ 3)\). The isotopy is obtained by repeated application of the following theorem, which can be considered the main result of the paper: any two PL embeddings of a 2-disk \(D\) into \(E^ 3\) (or \(S^ 3)\) which agree on \(\partial D\) are ambient isotopic keeping \(\partial D\) fixed.