Tight complexes in 3-space admit perfect discrete Morse functions

In 1967, Chillingworth proved that all convex simplicial 33-balls are collapsible. Using the classical notion of tightness, we generalize this to arbitrary manifolds: we show that all tight polytopal 33-manifolds admit some perfect discrete Morse function. We also strengthen Chillingworth’s theorem by proving that all convex simplicial 33-balls are non-evasive. In contrast, we show that many non-evasive 33-balls cannot be realized in a convex way.