Bridge position of 3-manifolds embedded in the 5-sphere

Abstract

We introduce and study bridge decompositions for 3-manifolds embedded in the 5-sphere. These generalize both the classical notion of bridge position for knots in the 3-sphere and the bridge trisections of surfaces in the 4-sphere due to Meier and Zupan. Our main technical tool is the multisections of 5-manifolds introduced by Aribi, Courte, Golla, and Moussard. We prove that every embedded 3-manifold admits such a decomposition; in particular, any such embedding is encoded by four trivial tangle diagrams. We also present a range of explicit examples, including $S^2$-spun knots and ribbon 3-knots.