Adjacency of three-manifolds and Brunnian links

Abstract

We introduce the notion of adjacency in three-manifolds. A three-manifold $Y$ is $n$-adjacent to another three-manifold $Z$ if there exists an $n$-component link in $Y$ and surgery slopes for that link such that performing Dehn surgery along any nonempty sublink yields $Z$. We characterize adjacencies from three-manifolds to the three-sphere, providing an analogy to Askitas and Kalfagianni's results on $n$-adjacency in knots.