Triangulations of Seifert fibred manifolds (Q706604)

Two different triangulations of the same \(3\)-manifold are related by a finite sequence of local moves called Pachner moves, as shown in [\textit{U. Pachner}, Eur. J. Comb. 12, 129--145 (1991; Zbl 0729.52003)]. In general, no bound for the number of such moves is known. On the other hand, a computable function bounding the length of the sequence of Pachner moves in terms of the number of tetrahedra of the two triangulations would give an algorithm for recognizing a fixed 3-manifold among all 3-manifolds. In this paper the author gives such a bound for the cases of Seifert fibred manifolds either with non-empty boundary or containing an incompressible vertical torus. He proves that two triangulations of the same manifold with \(p\) and \(q\) tetrahedra, respectively, are related by a number of Pachner moves only depending on \(p\) and \(q\), and not on the manifold. This bound results to be absolutely enormous, since it is obtained by a six times composition of exponential functions, and therefore has a purely theoretical interest.