Spines of 3-Manifolds as Polyhedra with Identified Faces

Abstract

In this article we establish the relation between the spines of 3-manifolds and the polyhedra with identified faces. We do this by showing that the spines of the closed, connected, orientable 3-manifolds can be presented through polyhedra with identified faces in a very natural way. We also prove the equivalence between the special spines and a certain type of polyhedra, and other related results.