Neighborhood equivalence for multibranched surfaces in 3-manifolds (Q670148)

According to \textit{S. Suzuki} [Osaka J. Math. 7, 375--396 (1970; Zbl 0209.54701)], two polyhedra \(P\) and \(P'\) in an oriented 3-manifold \(M\) are said to be \textit{neighborhood equivalent} if an orientation preserving self-homeomorphism of \(M\) exists taking the regular neighborhood of \(P\) in \(M\) to the one of \(P'\). \par In the case of graphs embedded in \(M\), the notion of neighborhood equivalence has been studied by \textit{K. Makino} and \textit{S. Suzuki} [``Notes on neighborhood congruence of spatial graphs'', Waseda Univ. Ser. Math. 43, 15--20 (1995)], proving that equivalence classes of handlebodies embedded in a 3-manifold coincide with those of spatial graphs modulo edge-contractions and vertex-expansions. \par The present paper takes into account the case of \textit{multibranched surfaces}, i.e. 2-dimensional polyhedra whose points have an open regular neighborhood homeomorphic to $C_{d_x} \times (0,1)$, $C_{d_x}$ being the cone over $d_x$ points (for some positive integer $d_x$, depending on the chosen point $x$). The main theorem proves the existence of two moves, which are able -- together with their inverses and isotopies -- to connect in finitely many steps any two multibranched surfaces with the same regular neighborhood. \par The authors complete the paper with an application to the study of \textit{tricontinuous} or \textit{poly-continuous patterns}, which are involved, for example, in microphase-separated structures of block copolymer materials.