A calculus for bordered Floer homology (Q6159804)

Bordered Heegaard Floer homology is loosely an invariant of three-manifolds with boundary [\textit{R. Lipshitz} et al., Bordered Heegaard Floer homology. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2018; Zbl 1422.57080)]. It behaves well under gluing, and allows one to recover the Heegaard Floer homology of complicated closed manifolds by understanding the bordered invariants of the pieces. In the case of three-manifolds with torus boundary, the invariants are tractable, and there has been significant topological application from their computation. In the current article, the authors derive a certain calculus for working with these invariants when they take on a special form, called ``loop-type''. For concrete examples, they show any Seifert fibered rational homology solid torus is loop-type. (In fact, the invariants of such a manifold have an even stronger form, called ``simple loop-type''). Using this, they are able to prove an equivalence between taut foliations, left-orderability, and not being an \(L\)-space for any graphmanifold with a single JSJ torus. They are also able to detect which Dehn fillings of a loop-type manifold produce \(L\)-spaces. Additionally, they characterize when gluing two simple loop-type manifolds produces an \(L\)-space: the gluing is an \(L\)-space if and only if each slope on the gluing torus is in the interior of the interval of \(L\)-space slopes for at least one of the two three-manifolds. The authors also partially answer a question of \textit{S. Boyer} and \textit{A. Clay} [Adv. Math. 310, 159--234 (2017; Zbl 1381.57003)], showing that for a loop-type rational homology solid torus \(M\), Dehn filling along a slope \(\gamma\) is in the interior of the interval of \(L\)-space slopes for \(M\) if and only if \(M\cup N\) is an \(L\)-space where \(N\) is the twisted \(I\)-bundle over the Klein bottle and \(\gamma\) is identified with the rational longitude of \(N\). To put this paper in context with other works, it is now known that the class of simple loop-type manifolds is the same as the class of manifolds obtained as exteriors of Floer-simple knots from the work of \textit{J. Rasmussen} and \textit{S. D. Rasmussen} [Adv. Math. 322, 738--805 (2017; Zbl 1379.57024)]. This identification is established in the joint work of \textit{J. Hanselman} et al. [Compos. Math. 156, No. 3, 604--612 (2020; Zbl 1432.57032)]. More generally, the four authors combine the work in the current paper with that of [loc. cit., Zbl 1379.57024] to prove the \(L\)-space conjecture for graphmanifolds. These works with loop-type manifolds also ultimately led Hanselman-J. Rasmussen-Watson to recast the bordered Floer homology for any three-manifold with torus boundary (loop-type or not) in terms of immersed curves with local systems in the punctured torus [\textit{J. Hanselman} et al., J. Am. Math. Soc. 37, No. 2, 391--498 (2024; Zbl 07798119); Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 125, No. 4, 879--967 (2022; Zbl 1530.57018)]. This newer perspective in terms of immersed curves has really taken off in the past few years, and has led to numerous applications to low-dimensional topology, such as to the cosmetic surgery conjecture [\textit{J. Hanselman}, J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 25, No. 5, 1627--1670 (2023; Zbl 1526.57011)], as well as laying the groundwork for immersed curve invariants in other settings, such as knot Floer homology [\textit{C. Zibrowius}, J. Topol. 13, No. 1, 77--158 (2020; Zbl 1473.57023)].