The Effect of Singularization on the Euler Characteristic

Abstract

In this work, singular surfaces are obtained from smooth orientable closed surfaces by applying three basic simple loop operations, collapsing operation, zipping operation and double loop identification, each of which produces different singular surfaces. A formula that provides the Euler characteristic of the singularized surface is proved. Also, we introduce a new definition of genus for singularized surfaces which generalizes the classical definition of genus in the smooth case. A theorem relating the Euler characteristic to the genus of the singularized surface is proved.