Primitive disk complexes for lens spaces

Abstract

For a genus two Heegaard splitting of a lens space, the primitive disk complex is defined to be the full subcomplex of the disk complex for one of the handlebodies of the splitting spanned by all vertices of primitive disks. In this work, we describe the complete combinatorial structure of the primitive disk complex for the genus two Heegaard splitting of each lens space. In particular, we find all lens spaces whose primitive disk complexes are contractible.