Realizing isomorphisms between first homology groups of closed 3-manifolds by borromean surgeries

Abstract

We refine Matveev's result asserting that any two closed oriented 3-manifolds can be related by a sequence of borromean surgeries if and only if they have isomorphic first homology groups and linking pairings. Indeed, a borromean surgery induces a canonical isomorphism between the first homology groups of the involved 3-manifolds, which preserves the linking pairing. We prove that any such isomorphism is induced by a sequence of borromean surgeries. As an intermediate result, we prove that a given algebraic square finite presentation of the first homology group of a 3-manifold, which encodes the linking pairing, can always be obtained from a surgery presentation of the manifold.