On non-singular stable maps of 3-manifolds with boundary into the plane (Q5931514)

The author considers stable smooth maps of compact 3-manifolds with nonempty boundary to the plane. It is proved that such a map can be lifted to an immersion to 3-space if and only if the map is nonsingular and any fiber of the map is a finite disjoint union of closed intervals and points. (Of course, the restriction of a nonsingular map to the boundary can have singularities). The proof uses local normal forms of boundary singularities of maps from 3-space to 2-space and studies the semilocal structures of these singularities as well as the powerful technique of global singularity theory called Stein factorization. Examples and counterexamples are also considered regarding lifts to higher dimensions. As an application of the original theorem the author characterizes orientable 3-dimensional handlebodies using their stable maps to the plane.