Powell's Conjecture on the Goeritz group of S³ is stably true

Abstract: In 1980 J. Powell proposed that, for every genus

g

, five specific elements suffice to generate the Goeritz group

m a t h c a l G_{g}

of genus

g

Heegaard splittings of

S^{3}

. Powell's Conjecture remains undecided for

g g e q 4

. Let

m a t h c a l P_{g} s u b s e t m a t h c a l G_{g}

denote the subgroup generated by Powell's elements. Here we show that, for each genus

g

, the natural function

m a t h c a l G_{g} o m a t h c a l G_{g + 1} / m a t h c a l P_{g + 1}

is trivial.

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