A sharper tits alternative for 3-manifold groups

The following theorem is proven. LetM be a closed, orientable, irreducible 3-manifold such that rankH ₁(M, ℤ/pℤ)≥3 for some primep. Then either π₁(M) is virtually solvable or it contains a free group of rank 2.     

Length and Stable Length

This paper establishes the existence of a gap for the stable length spectrum on a hyperbolic manifold. If M is a hyperbolic n-manifold, for every positive ϵ there is a positive δ depending only on n and on ϵ such that an element of π₁(M) with stable commutator length less than δ is represented by a geodesic with length less than ϵ. Moreover, for any such M, the first accumulation point for stable commutator length on conjugacy classes is at least 1/12. Conversely, “most” short geodesics in hyperbolic 3-manifolds have arbitrarily small stable commutator length. Thus stable commutator length is typically good at detecting the thick-thin decomposition of M, and 1/12 can be thought of as a kind of homological Margulis constant. Received: June 2006 Revision: May 2007 Accepted: June 2007     

A quadratic bound on the number of boundary slopes of essential surfaces with bounded genus

Let M be an orientable 3-manifold with ∂M a single torus. We show that the number of boundary slopes of immersed essential surfaces with genus at most g is bounded by a quadratic function of g. In the hyperbolic case, this was proved earlier by Hass et al.     

Geodesic knots in closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds

We consider the existence of simple closed geodesics or “geodesic knots” in finite volume orientable hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Every such manifold contains at least one geodesic knot by results of Adams, Hass and Scott in (Adams et al. Bull. London Math. Soc. 31: 81–86, 1999). In (Kuhlmann Algebr. Geom. Topol. 6: 2151–2162, 2006) we showed that every cusped orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold in fact contains infinitely many geodesic knots. In this paper we consider the closed manifold case, and show that if a closed orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold satisfies certain geometric and arithmetic conditions, then it contains infinitely many geodesic knots. The conditions on the manifold can be checked computationally, and have been verified for many manifolds in the Hodgson-Weeks census of closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Our proof is constructive, and the infinite family of geodesic knots spiral around a short simple closed geodesic in the manifold.      

Hyperbolic volume and modp homology

IfM is a closed, orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold such that H ₁ (M;Z _p ) >-for some primep, thenM contains a hyperbolic ball of radius (log 5)/4. There is also a related result in higher dimensions. Supported by an NSF grant     

An algorithm for finding planar surfaces in three-manifolds

By a slope in the boundary ∂M of a 3-manifold, we mean the isotopy class α of a finite set of disjoint simple closed curves in ∂M that are nontrivial and pairwise nonparallel. In this paper, we construct an algorithm to decide whether or not a given orientable 3-manifold M contains an essential planar surface whose boundary has a given slope α. __________ Translated from Fundamentalnaya i Prikladnaya Matematika, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 197–202, 2005.     

Profinite properties of graph manifolds

Let M be a closed, orientable, irreducible, geometrizable 3-manifold. We prove that the profinite topology on the fundamental group of π ₁(M) is efficient with respect to the JSJ decomposition of M. We go on to prove that π ₁(M) is good, in the sense of Serre, if all the pieces of the JSJ decomposition are. We also prove that if M is a graph manifold then π ₁(M) is conjugacy separable.     

Volume-convergent sequences of Haken 3-manifolds

Let M be a closed orientable 3-manifold and let Vol(M) denote its Gromov simplicial volume. This paper is devoted to the study of sequences of non-zero degree maps $\text{f}{}_{\mathrm{i}}\text{:M→N}{}_{\mathrm{i}}$ to Haken manifolds. We prove that any sequence of Haken manifolds (N_i,f_i), satisfying lim_i→∞deg(f_i)×Vol(N_i)=Vol(M) is finite up to homeomorphism. As an application, we deduce from this fact that any closed orientable 3-manifold with zero Gromov simplicial volume and in particular any graph manifold dominates at most finitely many Haken 3-manifolds. To cite this article: P. Derbez, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 336 (2003).     

On the pontryagin-steenrod-wu theorem

We present a short and direct proof (based on the Pontryagin-Thom construction) of the following Pontryagin-Steenrod-Wu theorem: (a) LetM be a connected orientable closed smooth (n + 1)-manifold,n≥3. Define the degree map deg: π ⁿ (M) →H ⁿ (M; ℤ) by the formula degf =f*[S ⁿ ], where [S ⁿ ] εH ⁿ (M; ℤ) is the fundamental class. The degree map is bijective, if there existsβ εH ₂(M, ℤ/2ℤ) such thatβ ·w ₂(M) ε 0. If suchβ does not exist, then deg is a 2-1 map; and (b) LetM be an orientable closed smooth (n+2)-manifold,n≥3. An elementα lies in the image of the degree map if and only ifρ ₂ α ·w ₂(M)=0, whereρ ₂: ℤ → ℤ/2ℤ is reduction modulo 2.     

On macroscopic dimension of rationally inessential manifolds

We show that, for a rationally inessential orientable closed n-manifold M whose fundamental group is a duality group, the macroscopic dimension of its universal cover [(M)\tilde]\tilde M is strictly less than n: dim _MC [(M)\tilde] < n\tilde M < n. As a corollary, we obtain the following partial result towards Gromov’s conjecture     

Minimum ideal triangulations of hyperbolic 3-manifolds

Let σ(n) be the minimum number of ideal hyperbolic tetrahedra necessary to construct a finite volumen-cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold, orientable or not. Let σ_or(n) be the corresponding number when we restrict ourselves to orientable manifolds. The correct values of σ(n) and σ_or(n) and the corresponding manifolds are given forn=1,2,3,4 and 5. We then show that 2n−1≤σ(n)≤σ_or(n)≤4n−4 forn≥5 and that σ_or(n)≥2n for alln. Both authors were supported by NSF Grants DMS-8711495, DMS-8802266 and Williams College Research Funds.     

On football manifolds of E. Molnár

A closed 3-manifold M is said to be hyperelliptic if it has an involution τ such that the quotient space of M by the action of τ is homeomorphic to the standard 3-sphere. We show that the hyperbolic football manifolds of Emil Molnár [12] are hyperelliptic. Then we determine the isometry groups of such manifolds. Another consequence is that the unique hyperbolic dodecahedral and icosahedral 3-space forms with first homology group ℤ₃₅ (constructed by I. Prok in [16], on the basis of a principal algorithm due to Emil Molnár [13], and by Richardson and Rubinstein in [18]) are also hyperelliptic.     

Collapsing irreducible 3-manifolds with nontrivial fundamental group

Let M be a closed, orientable, irreducible, non-simply connected 3-manifold. We prove that if M admits a sequence of Riemannian metrics which volume-collapses and whose sectional curvature is locally controlled, then M is a graph manifold. This is the last step in Perelman’s proof of Thurston’s Geometrisation Conjecture.     

Hyperbolic spatial graphs in 3-manifolds

For any closed connected orientable 3-manifold M, we present a method for constructing infinitely many hyperbolic spatial embeddings of a given finite graph with no vertex of degree less than two from hyperbolic spatial graphs in S³ via the Heegaard splitting theory. These spatial embeddings are adjustable so as to take cycle subgraphs into specified homotopy classes of loops in M.     

PROPER AFFINE DEFORMATIONS OF THE ONE-HOLED TORUS

A Margulis spacetime is a complete at Lorentzian 3-manifold M with free fundamental group. Associated to M is a noncompact complete hyperbolic surface ∑ homotopy-equivalent to M. The purpose of this paper is to classify Margulis spacetimes when ∑ is homeomorphic to a one-holed torus. We show that every such M decomposes into polyhedra bounded by crooked planes, corresponding to an ideal triangulation of ∑. This paper classifies and analyzes the structure of crooked ideal triangles, which play the same role for Margulis spacetimes as ideal triangles play for hyperbolic surfaces.     

Courbure totale des feuilletages des surfaces

The sum of the total curvatures of two orientable orthogonal foliations on the unit sphereS ²⊂R ³ is at least 4Π. The total curvature of a foliation with saddle singularities on a closed hyperbolic surfaceM is at least (12 Log 2–6 Log 3) ... |χ(M)|.      

Finite covers of random 3-manifolds

A 3-manifold is Haken if it contains a topologically essential surface. The Virtual Haken Conjecture posits that every irreducible 3-manifold with infinite fundamental group has a finite cover which is Haken. In this paper, we study random 3-manifolds and their finite covers in an attempt to shed light on this difficult question. In particular, we consider random Heegaard splittings by gluing two handlebodies by the result of a random walk in the mapping class group of a surface. For this model of random 3-manifold, we are able to compute the probabilities that the resulting manifolds have finite covers of particular kinds. Our results contrast with the analogous probabilities for groups coming from random balanced presentations, giving quantitative theorems to the effect that 3-manifold groups have many more finite quotients than random groups. The next natural question is whether these covers have positive betti number. For abelian covers of a fixed type over 3-manifolds of Heegaard genus 2, we show that the probability of positive betti number is 0.In fact, many of these questions boil down to questions about the mapping class group. We are led to consider the action of the mapping class group of a surface Σ on the set of quotients π₁(Σ)→Q. If Q is a simple group, we show that if the genus of Σ is large, then this action is very mixing. In particular, the action factors through the alternating group of each orbit. This is analogous to Goldman’s theorem that the action of the mapping class group on the SU(2) character variety is ergodic. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000) 57M50, 57N10     

Algorithms for finding proper essential surfaces in 3-manifolds

In this paper, we present an algorithm which, for a given compact orientable irreducible boundary irreducible 3-manifold M, verifies whether M contains an essential orientable surface (possibly, with boundary), whose genus is at most N. The algorithm is based on Haken’s theory of normal surfaces, and on a trick suggested by Jaco and consisting in estimating the mean length of boundary curves in an unknown essential surface of a given genus in the given manifold.     

Compactifying coverings of 3-manifolds

If a finitely presented groupG is negatively curved, automatic or asynchronously automatic thenG has an asynchronously bounded “almost prefix closed” combing. Results in [Br₁] and [E] imply that the fundamental group of any closed 3-manifold satisfying Thurston's geometrization conjecture has an asynchronously bounded, almost prefix closed combing. MAIN THEOREM. IfM is a compactP ²-irreducible 3-manifold,π ₁ (M) has an asynchronously bounded, almost prefix closed combing, andH, a subgroup ofπ ₁ (M), is quasiconvex with respect to this combing, then the cover ofM corresponding toH is a missing boundary manifold.     

Hyperbolic manifolds with convex boundary

Let (M,∂M) be a 3-manifold, which carries a hyperbolic metric with convex boundary. We consider the hyperbolic metrics on M such that the boundary is smooth and strictly convex. We show that the induced metrics on the boundary are exactly the metrics with curvature K>-1, and that the third fundamental forms of ∂M are exactly the metrics with curvature K<1, for which the closed geodesics which are contractible in M have length L>2π. Each is obtained exactly once. Other related results describe existence and uniqueness properties for other boundary conditions, when the metric which is achieved on ∂M is a linear combination of the first, second and third fundamental forms.