The local structure of injective LOT-complexes (Q6073658)

A labeled oriented graph (LOG) \(\Gamma\) consists of sets \(V\), \(E\) (vertices and edges), and maps \(s, t, \lambda : E\to V\) (the source, target, and label maps). If the underlying graph is a forest, resp. tree, then \(\Gamma\) is called a LOF, resp. LOT. The LOG complex \(K(\Gamma )\) is the standard \(2\)-complex with presentation \(\langle V\,|\,s(e)\lambda (e)=\lambda (e)t(e),\, e\in E\rangle\). The question of asphericity of \(K(\Gamma )\) for an LOT \(\Gamma\) is interesting since LOT's encode spines of ribbon disks in the \(4\)-ball and ribbon \(2\)-knots in the \(4\)-sphere, but Whitehead's asphericity conjecture (sub complexes of aspherical \(2\)-complexes are aspherical) is unresolved for LOT's. The authors describe known techniques and results about LOT's and \(K(\Gamma )\)'s and prove new Theorems in a unified way. They give precise definitions of the concepts used, such as (relative) bi-forests, reduced and boundary reducible LOG's, zero/one-angled complexes \(K\) and the (relative) coloring test for \(K\). The main new results are: If \(\Gamma\) is a reduced injective LOF without boundary reducible sub-LOT's, then \(lk(K(\Gamma ))\) is a bi-forest and \(K(\Gamma )\) admits a zero/one-angled structure that satisfies the coloring test. (Here ``injective'' means that the labeling map \(\lambda:E\to V\) is injective). It follows that \(K(\Gamma )\) is aspherical, has collapsible non-positive immersions, and \(\pi_1 (K(\Gamma ))\) is locally indicable. If \(\Gamma\) is a reduced injective LOF with disjoint sub-LOT's such that the quotient LOF \( \bar{\Gamma}\) is without boundary reducible sub-LOT's, then \(lk(K(\Gamma ))\) is a relative bi-forest and \(K(\Gamma )\) admits a zero/one-angled structure that satisfies the relative coloring test. The results are used to prove that \(K(\Gamma )\) is aspherical for any injective LOF \(\Gamma\).