Normal surfaces minimizing weight in a homology class (Q685047)

In a 3-manifold \(M\) with a fixed triangulation \(Z\) one assigns to a properly embedded surface \(F \subset M\) in general position with respect to the 1-skeleton \(T^ 1\) a ``weight'', \(w(t) = \#\) of points in \(T^ 1 \cap F\). The weight is defined for ``normal'' surfaces in the sense of Haken. By PL-cut-and-paste techniques several assertions concerning pairs of least weight normal surfaces in orientable 3-manifolds are proved, e.g.: the geometric sum \(G_ 1 + G_ 2\) of two such surfaces is (normally) isotopic to a disjoint union \(G_ 1'' \cup G_ 2''\), \(G_ 1 \sim G_ 1''\), \(G_ 2 \sim G_ 2''\). This is applied to give a PL- proof of a theorem of \textit{J. Hass} [Math. Z. 199, No. 4, 501-509 (1988; Zbl 0715.57005)] and its generalization to the case where the operating group \(G\) is infinite: Theorem 3.2. Let \(M\) be an orientable 3-manifold with a triangulation \(\mathcal T\). Let \(G\) be a group of simplicial homeomorphisms of \(M\) with \(\text{Fix}(G)\) a subcomplex. Suppose that there is a nontrivial element \(\alpha\) in \(H_ 2(M;Z)\) such that \(g_ *(\alpha) = \pm \alpha\) for each \(g \in G\). Then there exists an equivariantly embedded normal surface \(F\) representing the homology class \(\alpha\).