A-PROOF-OF-WALDHAUSEN’S-UNIQUENESS-OF-SPLITTINGS-OF-S3-(AFTER-RUBINSTEIN-AND-SCHARLEMANN).pdfVIP

A PROOF OF WALDHAUSEN’S UNIQUENESS OF SPLITTINGS OF S3 (AFTER RUBINSTEIN AND SCHARLEMANN) YO’AV RIECK In [9] F Waldhausen proved uniqueness of non-stabilized Heegaard 3 splittings of S : Theorem 1 (Waldhausen). Let Σ ⊂ S3 be a Heegaard surface of genus g 0. Then Σ is a stabilization of a Heegaard surface of genus g − 1. In [6] J H Rubinstein and M Scharlemann, using Cerf Theory [2], developed tools for comparing Heegaard splittings of irreducible, non- Haken manifolds. As a corollary of their work they obtained a new proof of Theorem 1. In this note we use Cerf Theory and develop the 3 tools needed for comparing Heegaard splittings of S . This allows us to use Rubinstein and Scharlemann’s philosophy and obtain a simpler proof of Theorem 1. We assume familiarity with the basic facts and standard terminology of 3-manifold topology and in particular Hee- gaard splittings; see [7]. We begin with an outline of the proof. As with many proofs of Theo- rem 1 we assume the theorem is false and pick Σ to be a minimal genus counterexample; we induct on g , the genus of Σ. A simple application of van Kampen’s theorem shows that if g = 1 then the meridians of the complementary solid tori intersect minimally once and hence Σ is 3 a stabilization of the genus zero splitting of S . The heart of the argu- ment (in the following sections) is to show that if g 1 then Σ weakly reduces. By A Casson and C McA Gordon’s seminal work [1] either Σ reduces or S3 contains an essential surface. As the latter is impossible, Σ must reduce. Cutting S3 open along the reducing sphere we obtain 2 balls (say B and