Any closed connected 3-manifold \(M\) can be decomposed as the union of two handlebodies with disjoint interiors. The Heegaard genus \(g(M)\) of such a 3-manifold is the minimum genus of the handlebodies in all such decompositions. The rank of a group is the cardinality of a minimum set of generators for the group. The rank of the closed connected 3-manifold \(M\) is by definition equal to \(\mathrm{rank}(\pi_1(M))\). In the context of this paper the rank is important because it is a lower bound for \(g(M)\). A covering space \(\varphi:\widetilde{M} \rightarrow M\) is said to be genus lowering if \(g(\widetilde{M} )< g(M)\). It is natural to ask if a given 3-manifold \(M\) has any genus lowering covering spaces. The paper begins with an investigation of properties of covering spaces \(\varphi: \widetilde{M} \rightarrow M\) where \(M\) is a surface bundle over the circle \(S^1\). The authors show that given a surface bundle \(F \hookrightarrow M \rightarrow S^1\) and covering space \(\varphi : \widetilde{M} \rightarrow M\) with connected total space \(\widetilde{M}\), there are covering spaces \(\varphi_{\gamma} : \widetilde{M} \rightarrow N\) and \(\varphi_{q}:N \rightarrow M\) such that \(\varphi = \varphi_q \circ \varphi_{\gamma}\). The first of these is called a covering of fibres and is induced, in a sense made precise in the paper, by a covering \(\psi : \widetilde{F} \rightarrow F\) of the fibre \(F\) by one of its covering spaces \(\widetilde{F}\). The covering \(\varphi_{q}:N \rightarrow M\) is called a power covering. It is induced by a covering of the base space \(S^1\) of the fibration. Thus, every covering of a compact connected 3-manifold which is a surface bundle over the circle factors as the composition of a covering of fibres and a power covering. Given \(F \hookrightarrow M \rightarrow S^1\), a fibre bundle over \(S^1\), it is determined by a homeomorphism \(A: F \rightarrow F\) called the monodromy map defined on the fibre. When the fibre \(F\) is the 2-dimensional torus and \(M\) is orientable more can be said. In this case \(A\) can be, and is, represented by a \(2 \times 2\) integral invertible matrix acting on the fundamental group \(\pi_1(T^2)\) of the fibre. For \(M\) a torus bundle over \(S^1\) with monodromy \(A\), write \(M = M_A\). Theorem 3.9 of the paper gives necessary and sufficient conditions for a covering of fibres \(\varphi : M_B \rightarrow M_A\), \(M_A\) and \(M_B\) orientable torus bundles over \(S^1\), to be a genus lowering cover. The conditions are expressed in terms of the matrix representations of the monodromies \(A\) and \(B\). Thus, by inspecting these matrices one sees in Remark 3.10 that there are fibre coverings of some torus bundles over \(S^1\) which are not genus lowering and, in Remark 3.11, some which are. For a torus bundle \(M_A\) over \(S^1\) which is also a double branched cover of \(S^3\), the (Smith normal form of the) matrix form of the monodromy map is very special. This allows the authors to show in their Theorem 4.3 that when \(M_A\) is a double branched cover of the 3-sphere that it can have no power coverings which lower genus. In Section 5 the authors determine conditions on the Seifert symbols which give that a Seifert fibred 3-manifold has a genus lowering covering space. Note that there is typo in Theorem 5.5, the conclusion in the theorem should be that \(h(M) = h(\widetilde{M}) + 1\) and \(\mathrm{rank}(M)=\mathrm{rank}(\widetilde{M})+1\).
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