Full paper in PDF:
$% M. R. Casali, Dotted links, Heegaard diagrams, and colored graphs for PL 4-manifolds, Rev. Mat. Complut. 17 (2004), 435–457.

Dotted Links, Heegaard Diagrams, and Colored Graphs for PL 4-Manifolds%$

The present paper is devoted to establish a connection between the 4-manifold representation method by dotted framed links (or —in the closed case— by Heegaard diagrams) and the so called crystallization theory, which visualizes general PL-manifolds by means of edge-colored graphs.

In particular, it is possible to obtain a crystallization of a closed 4-manifold starting from a Heegaard diagram , and the algorithmicity of the whole process depends on the effective possibility of recognizing to be a Heegaard diagram by crystallization theory.

Key words: PL-manifold, handle-decomposition, dotted framed link, crystallization.
2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary 57N13-57M15; Secondary 57M25-57Q15.