Open book decompositions versus prime factorizations of closed, oriented 3-manifolds (Q906844)

Let \(M\) be a closed, oriented and connected \(3\)-manifold and \((B,\pi)\) an open book decomposition of \(M\) with page \(\Sigma\) and monodromy \(\varphi\). The main result of this paper is that \(\varphi\) must be trivial if the first Betti number of \(M\) is equal to that of \(\Sigma\). An open book decomposition of a 3-manifold \(M\) is a pair \((B,\pi)\), where \(B\) is a link in \(M\), i.e., a disjoint union of simple closed curves in \(M\) and \(\pi: M\setminus B \to S^1\) is a fibration of \(M\) such that the closure of \(\pi^{-1} (t)\) \((t\in S^1)\) is a compact surface \(\Sigma\) in \(M\) with \(\partial \Sigma=B\). Such \(\Sigma\) is called the page. A monodromy \(\varphi\) is an orientation-preserving diffeomorphism of \(\Sigma\) which fixes a neighborhood of \(\partial \Sigma\). It is easy to see that if \(\varphi\) is trivial, then \(M\) is a connected sum of copies of \(S^2\times S^1\). This implies that the first Betti number of \(M\) is equal to that of \(\Sigma\). This paper shows the converse is also true. The result gives another proof of the fact, which has been obtained by \textit{J. S. Birman} and \textit{W. W. Menasco} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 329, No. 2, 585--606 (1992; Zbl 0758.57005)] and also by \textit{T. D. Cochran} [Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 119, No. 1, 43--53 (1996; Zbl 0866.57006)], that if \(b\) is an \(n\)-braid such that its closure is the \(n\)-component unlink, then \(b\) is trivial. Another application is also mentioned. Let \(\Sigma\) and \(\Sigma'\) be compact orientable surfaces and \(\Sigma \natural \Sigma'\) their boundary connected sum. If \(\varphi\) and \(\psi\) are diffeomorphisms of \(\Sigma\) and \(\Sigma'\) respectively such that both fix neighborhoods of \(\partial \Sigma\) and \(\partial \Sigma'\), then we can naturally obtain a diffeomorphism \(\varphi \natural \psi\) of \(\Sigma \natural \Sigma'\). This gives a homomorphism of mapping class groups \(\Gamma_{\Sigma} \times \Gamma_{\Sigma'} \to \Gamma_{\Sigma \natural \Sigma'}\), and the authors show as a corollary that the homomorphism is injective. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1333.57003].