# Kirby Calculus in Manifolds with Boundary

(Date: January 18, 1996)  

Suppose there are two framed links in a compact, connected 3-manifold (possibly with boundary, or non-orientable) such that the associated 3-manifolds obtained by surgery are homeomorphic (relative to their common boundary, if there is one.) How are the links related? Kirby’s theorem \[K1\] gives the answer when the manifold is $`S^3`$, and Fenn and Rourke \[FR\] extended it to the case of any closed orientable 3-manifold, or $`S^1\stackrel{~}{\times }S^2`$. The purpose of this note is to give the answer in the general case, using only minor modifications of Kirby’s original proof.

Let $`M`$ be a compact, connected, orientable (for the moment) 3-manifold with boundary, containing (in its interior) a framed link $`L`$. Doing surgery on this link produces a new manifold, whose boundary is canonically identified with the original $`M`$. In fact any compact connected orientable $`N`$, whose boundary is identified (via some chosen homeomorphism) with that of $`M`$, may be obtained by surgery on $`M`$ in such a way that the boundary identification obtained after doing the surgery agrees with the chosen one. This is because $`M(M\times I)N`$ (gluing $`N`$ on via the prescribed homeomorphism of boundaries) is a closed orientable 3-manifold, hence bounds a (smooth orientable) 4-manifold, by Lickorish’s theorem \[L1\]. Taking a handle decomposition of this 4-manifold starting from a collar $`M\times I`$ requires no 0-handles (by connectedness) and no $`1`$\- or $`3`$-handles, because these may be traded (surgered 4-dimensionally) to 2-handles (see \[K1\]). The attaching maps of the remaining 2-handles determine a framed link $`L`$ in $`M`$, surgery on which produces $`N`$.

The framed link representation is not at all unique, and the natural question is: given framed links $`L_0`$ and $`L_1`$ in $`M`$ such that the surgered manifolds $`M_0,M_1`$ are homeomorphic relative to their boundary (there is a canonical identification between these boundaries which we must not change), how are $`L_0`$ and $`L_1`$ related? If $`M`$ is the 3-sphere, the answer was given by Kirby \[K1\]: there is a finite sequence of (isotopy classes of) links, the first being $`L_0`$ and the last $`L_1`$, such that each is obtained from its predecessor by a move of type $`𝒪_1`$ or $`𝒪_2`$ or its reverse. The move $`𝒪_1`$ is supported in a 3-ball in $`M`$: it is simply disjoint union with a $`\pm 1`$-framed unknot. The move $`𝒪_2`$ is supported in a genus-2 handlebody in $`M`$: it is any embedded image of the pattern depicted in figure 1, which is a modification of zero-framed links occurring inside a standard unknotted handlebody in $`S^3`$. (This is probably easier than thinking about it as a parallel-and-connect-sum operation.)

Fenn and Rourke proved in \[FR\] that the theorem could be extended to any closed orientable $`M`$ by allowing an additional move $`𝒪_3`$, supported in a solid torus, and shown in figure 2; its amusing name is due to Kauffman. (It is well-known that in $`S^3`$ this move follows from $`𝒪_1`$ and $`𝒪_2`$.)

###### Theorem 1.

For an arbitrary compact, connected, orientable 3-manifold with boundary, moves $`𝒪_1`$, $`𝒪_2`$, $`𝒪_3`$ still suffice.

###### Proof.

The proof follows from a careful reading of the original proof in Kirby’s paper \[K1\]: little additional effort is required. However, to convince the reader, a short summary of this proof, recalling the main stages and noting the differences which arise, will be presented.

Stage 1. Let $`W_0`$ and $`W_1`$ be 4-manifolds formed by taking $`M\times I`$ and attaching 2-handles to the top surface along the links $`L_0`$, $`L_1`$. They have common boundaries $`W_0=W_1=M(M\times I)N`$, so cross this with $`I`$ and use it to glue them together to get a closed smooth 4-manifold. After connect-summing $`W_0`$ with some ‘$`P^2`$’s or their reverses (move $`𝒪_1`$) the signature of this closed manifold may be taken to be zero, so it bounds a smooth 5-manifold $`V`$. Form a handle decomposition of $`V`$, founded on $`W_0\times I`$, by taking a generic Morse function on $`V`$ which restricts to 0 on $`W_0`$, 1 on $`W_1`$, and $`t`$ on the slice $`W_0\times \{t\}`$ of the connecting product 4-manifold. This decomposition can be chosen to have no 0- or 5-handles (by connectedness and non-closedness), and all its handles’ attaching maps land in $`W_0`$, because of the form of the Morse function on the boundary. Just as in \[K1\], surger the 1- and 4-handles to 3- and 2-handles, reorder them in the natural way and view $`V`$ as having two “ends” $`W_0`$ and $`W_1`$, and a “middle slice” $`W_{1/2}`$ (the level set of $`\frac{1}{2}`$) which is reached, working inwards from a collar on either end, by the attachment of 5-dimensional 2-handles. Such things attach by framed ‘$`S^1\times B^3`$’s lying in whichever end $`W_i`$ ($`i=0,1`$) is being considered. Since each $`W_i`$ is obtained by attaching just 2-handles to $`M\times I`$, the images of the attaching maps may be isotoped into $`M\times I`$. Now comes a crucial difference: in \[K1\], each $`S^1\times B^3`$ lies in $`S^3\times I`$, so it is null-homotopic and may be unknotted; the effect of surgery is thus to connect-sum $`W_i`$ with $`(S^4S^1\times B^3)(B^2\times S^2)`$, which is either $`S^2\times S^2`$ or the twisted bundle $`S^2\stackrel{~}{\times }S^2`$, depending on which of the two framings of $`S^1\times B^3`$ is used. Such a connect-sum can be achieved by using only $`𝒪_1`$ and $`𝒪_2`$ (although of course it may be regarded as just the reverse of $`𝒪_3`$). In the general situation, the homotopy class of the knot in $`M\times I`$ may be non-trivial, and it is clear that the attaching cannot in general be achieved using just $`𝒪_1`$ and $`𝒪_2`$, because these moves preserve the subgroup of $`\pi _1(M)`$ generated by the components of the framed link. Instead, if the $`S^1\times B^3`$ is pictured as lying on top of the top surface of $`M\times I`$, meeting it in $`S^1\times B^2`$ (some framed knot whose “integral” framing stabilised to a “mod 2” one for $`S^1\times B^3`$ agrees with the given one), then replacing it by $`B^2\times S^2`$ may be achieved by decomposing $`B^2\times S^2=B^2\times B^2_{B^2\times S^1}B^2\times B^2`$ and adding these pieces one at a time: the first attaches as a 2-handle to the framed knot $`S^1\times B^2`$, and the second as a 2-handle to the framed core of that handle. Pushing it off the core into the top surface of $`M`$, results in a small zero-framed meridional curve linking the original one once. This is exactly the reverse of the move $`𝒪_3`$, occurring in the framed solid torus $`S^1\times B^2`$.

Stage 2. The previous stage showed that by using just $`𝒪_1`$ and $`𝒪_3`$, the links in $`M`$ can be altered to the point where they represent diffeomorphic 4-manifolds, namely the common “middle slice” $`W_{1/2}`$, henceforth renamed simply $`W`$. Note that nothing in that stage perturbed the canonical decomposition of the boundary of $`W`$ into $`M(M\times I)N`$, since all the handles were attached in the interior of $`M`$. Now apply Cerf theory: regard the two different handle decompositions of $`W`$ as being induced by Morse functions $`f_0`$, $`f_1`$ each taking the value 0 on $`M`$, $`t`$ on $`M\times \{t\}`$, 1 on $`N`$, and having no critical points near the boundary. These may be connected by a generic path of functions (all satisfying the same boundary conditions) in the usual way. There is no difference at this stage between the original proof (where, at this stage, $`W`$ has two disjoint closed boundary components $`M,N`$, assigned the values 0 and 1) and this refined case (where $`M,N`$ have boundary and there is a connecting collar $`M\times I`$ with projection to $`I`$ as a Morse function) since Cerf’s theory of genericity of functions on manifolds with boundary (see for example \[HW\]) requires only that there are never critical points near the boundary: this is ensured by the restriction of the Morse function. Consequently, everything can be worked as in \[K1\]. The arc of functions defines a graphic depicting the indices and heights of the critical points; there are isolated moments at which a handle pair is born or dies, or when one handle’s descending manifold slides over another’s critical point, instead of descending to the “base” $`M`$, but generically all that is occurring is isotopy of the attaching maps. (Other than at handleslides, all descending manifolds still reach the base because the Morse function on the “sides” is arranged to stop them landing there.)

Recall that the idea of Kirby’s proof is to alter the graphic so as to remove all critical points of index other than 2: for then, what remains is a graphic depicting isotopy of 2-handle attaching maps and occasional slides of one 2-handle over another, which correspond to the move $`𝒪_2`$. Much progress can be made by applying the manouevres of Cerf theory (dovetail lemma, beak lemma, principle of independent trajectories). First, the 0-1-handle births and deaths are put in a nested form. By introducing trivial 1-2-pairs and cancelling their 1-handles with the 0-handles (formally, introducing two dovetails and then moving beaks and independent trajectories), all 0-handles can be removed from the graphic, leaving new 2-handles in their place. A similar procedure replaces the 4-handles by 2-handles. Next, the 1-2- and 2-3-pairs are nested in a similar fashion: it is advantageous at this stage to apply the above procedure once again, in order to replace the 3-handles by 1-handles (this was not used in \[K1\]). So at the end of this stage, the graphic has only 1- and 2-handles.

Stage 3. There remains only the problem of “continuously surgering a 1-handle to a 2-handle” all the way along the arc of functions between the birth and death.

Consider the outermost 1-2-pair in the nest. Just after the birth, the attaching maps may be visualised as a pair of 3-balls in $`M`$, representing the feet of the 1-handle, together with a (framed) attaching curve $`AC`$ for the 2-handle, where $`C`$ is an arc in $`M`$ and $`A`$ is the core of the 1-handle. The surgery will be specified by picking any (framed) curve consisting of another core $`A^{}`$ of the 1-handle and an arc $`B_0`$ in $`M`$ (choose it to miss all the other handle attachments). During the period of time between the birth and death of the 1-handle under consideration, the feet of the 1-handle are isotoped around, as are the other attaching maps, and there are births and deaths of pairs and 2-handle slides. Notice that 1-handles do not slide on 1-handles: this is part of the outcome of the Cerf theory in stage 2. The isotopy of the feet extends to an ambient isotopy of $`M`$ which drags the arc $`B_0`$ through a family $`B_t`$.

“Continuous surgery” on $`A^{}B_t`$ means replacing its neighbourhood by $`B^2\times S^2`$ in some standard fashion, independent of $`t`$. A concrete way of realising this 5-dimensional cobordism is to attach a pair of 2-handles (as described more explicitly in stage 1) onto $`W`$, one running along $`A^{}B_t`$ and one (dual to it) on a small 0-framed meridian of this curve. Then perform a collapse of the 1-handle across the new ‘long’ 2-handle onto a regular neighbourhood of $`B_t`$, removing the pair. The effect on the handle decomposition is to delete the 1-handle, connect up all the other attaching curves which run over it using arcs running parallel to $`B_t`$ in its regular neighbourhood, and encircle all these with a 0-framed unknot. This operation is obviously continuous with respect to isotopy of attaching maps (and to other births and deaths and handleslides, which may be chosen to happen away from the feet and arc) except when a 2-handle attaching curve crosses the arc $`B_t`$, but this requires only a slide move $`𝒪_2`$. This procedure may thus be used to eliminate the 1-handles, but it remains to examine the change in framed links which occurs in the time interval spanning the birth and the surgery. (The case of a death is exactly the reverse of this situation, once any attaching curves which go over the 1-handle have been slid off over the cancelling 2-handle, using move $`𝒪_2`$).

The birth of such a pair can be explicitly realised (via a homeomorphism) as an expansion (inverse collapsing) move from a regular neighbourhood of the arc $`CM`$ (which is assumed to be disjoint from any other attaching curves.) The changes in the link are shown in figure 3; the initial and final configurations differ by handleslides and then a circumcision $`𝒪_3`$, finishing the proof. ∎

###### Remark 1.

It is easily shown that the moves $`𝒪_1`$, $`𝒪_2`$, $`𝒪_3`$ generate the same equivalence relation on framed links as do $`𝒪_1`$, $`𝒪_2`$, $`𝒪_3^{}`$, where $`𝒪_3^{}`$ is the alternative operation shown in figure 4.

###### Remark 2.

In this formulation of the theorem, the question of “reparametrisation of the boundary” has been deliberately avoided. It can be brought in by gluing on a mapping cylinder, defined as $`(F\times [0,\frac{1}{2}])_f(F\times [\frac{1}{2},1])`$, where $`F`$ is a closed surface, and $`f`$ is an automorphism: in this form, its boundaries are still canonically identified. Expressing $`f`$ as a product of Dehn twists gives a presentation of the cylinder as $`F\times I`$, surgered on a sequence of curves in successive $`F`$-slices of the cylinder. The move $`𝒪_3^{}`$, in this context, expresses cancellation of a Dehn twist and its inverse in the mapping class group. (It seems to me possible, though unlikely, that Kirby calculus in $`F\times I`$ could be used to derive a presentation of the mapping class group of $`F`$.)

The non-orientable case

If $`M`$ is non-orientable then it is still possible to give such a classification theorem. Once again, if $`M`$ and $`N`$ are two compact, connected, non-orientable manifolds with identified boundaries, then gluing them via a collar on the boundary gives a closed non-orientable manifold. By Lickorish’s theorem \[L2\], it bounds a (smooth) non-orientable 4-manifold. A handle decomposition of this 4-manifold built on $`M\times I`$ can have its 1- and 3-handles removed by surgering them to 2-handles (surgery is performed on a circle consisting of the core union an arc in $`M`$, which has to be chosen so that the circle has a trivial normal bundle; since $`M`$ itself contains orientation-reversing loops, this will always be possible). Consequently, it is possible to get from $`M`$ to $`N`$ (rel the boundary) by surgery on a framed link. It should be noted that since 2-handles attach along solid tori rather than twisted disc bundles, the homotopy classes of all attaching curves lie in the orientation-preserving subgroup of $`\pi _1(M)`$. (Note also that adding 2-handles cannot change orientability of the 3-manifold, so this is a totally separate case.)

To generate the equivalence relation on links requires another move $`𝒪_4`$, similar to the $`\mu `$-move which was introduced by Fenn and Rourke \[FR\]. It is supported in a solid Klein bottle $`S^1\stackrel{~}{\times }B^2`$ contained in $`M`$, and shown schematically in figure 5. Take the simple closed curve on the bounding Klein bottle which runs twice around the $`S^1`$ direction (this is unique up to isotopy, in fact Lickorish \[L2\] demonstrates that there are only two non-trivial isotopy classes of unoriented, orientation-preserving simple closed curves on a Klein bottle). Give this curve a framing $`+1`$ relative to the surface of the Klein bottle, and push it slightly into the solid bottle. The move $`𝒪_4`$ consists of doing surgery on this framed curve. It is easy to see that the surgered manifold is homeomorphic (rel its boundary) to the same solid Klein bottle by considering the equivalence between surgery on a curve in a surface (with relative framing $`+1`$) and cutting-and-regluing via a (negative) Dehn twist on that curve. Since the curve on the Klein bottle bounds a Möbius strip, and the Dehn twist parallel to the boundary of such a strip is isotopic to the identity, the homeomorphism is clear. (This also makes it clear that parity of the framing is all that matters.)

An alternative interpretation of this move at the 4-manifold level is useful. Consider the standard decomposition of $`P^4`$ with one handle in each dimension. Its 2-skeleton is $`S^1\stackrel{~}{\times }B^3`$ union a 2-handle along the framed curve above. (The framing is checked by computing the mod 2 self-intersection of $`P^2`$, which is the core of the 2-handle union the Möbius strip used above.) The other two handles form $`S^1\stackrel{~}{\times }B^3`$. An $`S^1\stackrel{~}{\times }B^3`$ contained in a 4-manifold may be cut out and replaced with the complement of the 1-skeleton of $`P^4`$ by using the 5-cobordism $`(S^1\stackrel{~}{\times }B^3)\times I`$. If the original $`S^1\stackrel{~}{\times }B^3`$ is a 4-dimensional neighbourhood of an orientation-reversing curve in $`MM\times I`$, then performing this replacement corresponds to attaching the 2-handle to the curve in the 3-dimensional solid Klein bottle neighbourhood in $`M`$, as in move $`𝒪_4`$.

###### Theorem 2.

If $`M`$ is a compact, connected, non-orientable manifold then moves $`𝒪_1`$, $`𝒪_2`$, $`𝒪_3`$, $`𝒪_4`$ suffice.

###### Proof.

The start of the proof is the same as before: connect the 4-manifolds via a collar. The resulting closed 4-manifold bounds a smooth 5-manifold if and only if its Stiefel-Whitney numbers $`w_2^2`$ and $`w_4`$ to vanish. This can be achieved by connect-summing with $`P^2`$ ($`w_2^2=1,w_4=1`$) and $`P^4`$ ($`w_2^2=0,w_4=1`$) if necessary. The first is effected by move $`𝒪_1`$. In the second case, use the 5-cobordism described above instead of a 1-handle: the effect on the characteristic classes is the same, and this is move $`𝒪_4`$.

Now take a Morse function on the 5-manifold whose restriction to the boundary is as before. Once again, replace the 1- and 4-handles by 3- and 2-handles using surgery, having first chosen suitable arcs to get trivial normal bundles. The effects of the 2- and 3-handles are, as before, to add pairs of 2-handles corresponding to move $`𝒪_3`$, starting from each end of the 5-manifold, to reach the common $`W_{1/2}`$. Now the Cerf theory works as before, and lack of orientability does not play a part in the remainder of the proof. ∎

Acknowledgement. Recently Kerler \[Ke1\] and Sawin \[S\], motivated by the desire to give clean constructions of Topological Quantum Field Theories à la Reshetikhin-Turaev, obtained related presentations and ‘moves’ for general orientable 3-manifolds. Neither of these papers dealt with the natural generalisation of the original framed link calculus of Kirby, as presented here, although Kerler checked in \[Ke2\] that his bridged link calculus (essentially, allowing 1-handles as well as 2-handles) implied it. (The rather different version of Sawin does not seem to have this property.) Neither did these papers deal with the non-orientable case (usually neglected in TQFT), although presumably they would generalise too. I am grateful to Rob Kirby and Steve Sawin for the encouragement to write this version up.