Genus three Goeritz groups of connected sums of two lens spaces (Q6937922)

The Goeritz group of a Heegaard splitting of a \(3\)-manifold is the group of isotopy classes of diffeomorphisms of the manifold that preserve the splitting. In this paper, the authors consider a genus \(3\) Heegaard splitting that is obtained from genus \(1\) Heegaard splittings of two lens spaces and \(S^3\) by taking the connected sum. They first show that the Goeritz group is generated by the three subgroups that preserve one of the three genus \(1\) summands. The proof of this fact utilizes \textit{M. Freedman} and \textit{M. Scharlemann}'s uniqueness theorem of reducing spheres for Heegaard splittings [Mich. Math. J. 74, No. 1, 119--142 (2024; Zbl 1546.57045)]. Furthermore, they show that each subgroup can be written as a combination of the Goeritz groups of lower genus splittings, which are known to be finitely generated by [\textit{S. Cho} and \textit{Y. Koda}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 371, No. 4, 2473--2502 (2019; Zbl 1406.57015)]. As such, the whole Goeritz group is finitely generated. As an interesting application, they also prove that the complex of reducing spheres for the Heegaard splitting is connected.