Given a finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold, we compose a lift of the holonomy in SL(2,C) with the n-dimensional irreducible representation of SL(2,C) in SL(n,C). In this paper we give local coordinates of the SL(n,C)-character variety around this representation. As a corollary, this representation is isolated among all representations that are unipotent at the cusps.
We study character varieties of symmetric knots and their reductions mod p. We observe that the varieties present a different behaviour according to whether the knots admit a free or periodic symmetry.
The space AH(M) of marked hyperbolic 3-manifold homotopy equivalent to a compact 3-manifold with boundary M sits inside the PSL_2(C)-character variety X(M) of π_1(M). We study the dynamics of the action of Out(π_1(M)) on both AH(M) and X(M). The nature of the dynamics reflects the topology of M. The quotient AI(M)=AH(M)/Out(π_1(M)) may naturally be thought of as the moduli space of unmarked hyperbolic 3-manifolds homotopy equivalent to M and its topology reflects the dynamics of the action.
This is a survey on Reidemeister torsion for hyperbolic three-manifolds of finite volume. Torsions are viewed as topological invariants and also as functions on the variety of representations in $\operatorname{ SL}_2(\mathbb C)$. In both cases, the torsions may also be computed after composing with finite dimensional representations of $\operatorname{ SL}_2(\mathbb C)$. In addition the paper deals with the torsion of the adjoint representation as a function on the variety of $\operatorname{ PSL}_{n+1}(\mathbb C)$-characters, using that the first cohomology group with coefficients twisted by th…
It is proved that the Hasse-Weil zeta functions of the canonical components of the ${\rm SL}_2$ (${\rm PSL}_2$)-character varieties of closed orientable complete hyperbolic $3$-manifolds of finite volume are equal to the Dedekind zeta functions of their trace fields (invariant trace fields). When the closed $3$-manifold is arithmetic, the special value at $s=2$ of the Hasse-Weil zeta function of the canonical component of the ${\rm PSL}_2$-character variety is expressed in terms of the hyperbolic volume of the manifold up to rational numbers.
Hyperbolic Dehn surgery and the bending procedure provide two ways which can be used to describe hyperbolic deformations of a complete hyperbolic structure on a 3-manifold. Moreover, one can obtain examples of non-Haken manifolds without the use of Thurston's Uniformization Theorem. We review these gluing techniques and present a logical continuity between these ideas and gluing methods for Higgs bundles. We demonstrate how one can construct certain model objects in representation varieties $\text{Hom} \left( π_{1} \left( Σ\right), G \right) $ for a topological surface $Σ$ and a semisimple Lie…
Let $M$ be a hyperbolizable $3$-manifold with boundary, and let $χ_0(M)$ be a component of the $PSL_2\mathbb{C}$-character variety of $M$ that contains the convex co-compact characters. We show that the peripheral map $i_*:χ_0(M)\rightarrowχ(\partial M)$ to the character variety of $\partial M$ is a birational isomorphism with its image, and in particular is generically a one-to-one map. This generalizes work of Dunfield (one cusped hyperbolic $3$-manifolds) and Klaff-Tillmann (finite volume hyperbolic $3$-manifolds). We use the Bonahon-Schläfli formula and volume rigidity of discrete co-compa…
We survey some of our recent results on length series identities for hyperbolic (cone) surfaces, possibly with cusps and/or boundary geodesics; classical Schottky groups; representations/characters of the one-holed torus group to $SL(2, \mathbf C)$; and hyperbolic 3 manifolds obtained by hyperbolic Dehn surgery on punctured torus bundles over the circle. These can be regarded as generalizations and variations of McShane's identity for cusped hyperbolic surfaces, which has found some striking applications in the recent work of Mirzakhani. We discuss some of the methods and techniques used to ob…
In this paper we define the Reidemeister torsion as a rational function on the geometric components of the character variety of a one-cusped hyperbolic manifold M. We study its poles and zeros, and we deduce sufficient conditions on the manifold M for this function being non-constant.
This paper gives examples of hyperbolic 3-manifolds whose SL(2,C) character varieties have ideal points whose associated roots of unity are not 1 or -1. This answers a question of Cooper, Culler, Gillet, Long, and Shalen as to whether roots of unity other than 1 and -1 occur.
Let M be an orientable, cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold of finite volume. We show that the restriction map from a Dehn surgery component in the PSL(2,C)-character variety of M to the character variety of the boundary of M is a birational isomorphism onto its image. This generalises a result by Nathan Dunfield. A key step in our proof is the exactness of Craig Hodgson's volume differential on the eigenvalue variety.
This paper proves a theorem about Dehn surgery using a new theorem about PSL(2, C) character varieties. Confirming a conjecture of Boyer and Zhang, this paper shows that a small hyperbolic knot in a homotopy sphere having a non-trivial cyclic slope r has an incompressible surface with non-integer boundary slope strictly between r-1 and r+1. A corollary is that any small knot which has only integer boundary slopes has Property P. The proof uses connections between the topology of the complement of the knot, M, and the PSL(2, C) character variety of M that were discovered by Culler and Shalen. T…
We describe relations between hyperbolic geometry and codimension two knots or, more exactly, between varieties of conjugacy classes of discrete faithful representations of the fundamental groups of hyperbolic n-manifolds M into $\operatorname{SO}^{\circ} (n+2,1)$ and (n-1)-dimensional knots in the (n+1)-sphere. This approach allows us to discover a phenomenon of non-connectedness of these varieties for closed n-manifolds M, $n\geq 3$, with large enough number of disjoint totally geodesic surfaces, to construct quasisymmetric infinitely compounded "Julia" knots $K\subset S^{n+1}$ which are eve…
We consider varieties of representations and characters of 2 and 3-dimensional orbifolds in semisimple Lie groups, and we focus on computing their dimension. For hyperbolic 3-orbifolds, we consider the component of the variety of characters that contains the holonomy composed with the principal representation, we show that its dimension equals half the dimension of the variety of characters of the boundary. We also show that this is a lower bound for the dimension of generic components. We furthermore provide tools for computing dimensions of varieties of characters of 2-orbifolds, including t…
Closed essential surfaces in a three-manifold can be detected by ideal points of the character variety or by algebraic non-integral representations. We give examples of closed essential surfaces not detected in either of these ways. For ideal points, we use Chesebro's module-theoretic interpretation of Culler-Shalen theory. As a corollary, we construct an infinite family of closed hyperbolic Haken 3-manifolds with no algebraic non-integral representations into PSL(2, C), resolving a question of Shanuel and Zhang.
We establish some facts about the behavior of the rational-geometric subvariety of the $SL_2(\c)$ or $PSL_2(\c)$ character variety of a hyperbolic knot manifold under the restriction map to the $SL_2(\c)$ or $PSL_2(\c)$ character variety of the boundary torus, and use the results to get some properties about the A-polynomials and to prove the AJ conjecture for certain class of knots in $S^3$ including in particular any $2$-bridge knot over which the double branched cover of $S^3$ is a lens space of prime order.
In this paper we construct arbitrarily large families of smooth projective varieties and closed Riemannian manifolds that share many algebraic and analytic invariants. For instance, every non-arithmetic, closed hyperbolic $3$--manifold admits arbitrarily large collections of non-isometric finite covers which are strongly isospectral, length isospectral, and have isomorphic integral cohomology where the isomorphisms commute with restriction and co-restriction. We can also construct arbitrarily large collections of pairwise non-isomorphic smooth projective surfaces where these isomorphisms in co…
We give new bounds for the distance between two exceptional filling slopes for a 1-cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold in several different situations. The distance between a reducible slope and a slope that produces a manifold with finite fundamental group is at most 2. The distance between a reducible slope and one that produces a very small manifold is also at most 2. The distance between a reducible slope and one which produces a manifold with a pi_1 injective torus is at most 4. The methods used involve both characteristic submanifold theory and the theory of the PSL(2,C) character variety.
We survey recent work on the dynamics of the outer automorphism group of a word hyperbolic group on spaces of (conjugacy classes of) representations ofthe group into a semi-simple Lie group G. All these results are motivated by the fact that the mapping class group of a closed surface acts properly discontinuously on the Teichmuller space of the surface. We explore two settings. 1) The work of Guichard, Labourie and Wienhard establishing the proper discontinuity of the action of outer automorphism groups on spaces of Anosov representations. 2) The work of Canary, Gelander, Lee, Magid, Minsky a…
We consider the relationship between hyperbolic cone-manifold structures on surfaces, and algebraic representations of the fundamental group into a group of isometries. A hyperbolic cone-manifold structure on a surface, with all interior cone angles being integer multiples of $2π$, determines a holonomy representation of the fundamental group. We ask, conversely, when a representation of the fundamental group is the holonomy of a hyperbolic cone-manifold structure. In this paper we build upon previous work with punctured tori to prove results for higher genus surfaces. Our techniques construct…
In this paper we consider some families of links, including (-2,2m+1,2n)-pretzel links and twisted Whitehead links. We calculate the character varieties of these families, and determine the number of irreducible components of these character varieties.
Let M be a two cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold and let M(r) be the result of r Dehn filling of a fixed cusp of M. We study canonical components of the SL(2,C) character varieties of M(r). We show that the gonality of these sets is bounded, independent of the filling parameter. We also obtain bounds, depending on r, for the genus of these sets. We compute the gonality for the double twist knots, demonstrating canonical components with arbitrarily large gonality.
Let X be a finite CW complex. We show that the fundamental group of X is large if and only if there is a finite cover Y of X and a sequence of finite abelian covers \{Y_N\} of Y which satisfy b_1(Y_N)\geq N. We give some applications of this result to the study of hyperbolic 3--manifolds, mapping classes of surfaces and combinatorial group theory.
We announce results on a compactification of general character varieties that has good topological properties and give various interpretations of its ideal points. We relate this to the Weyl chamber length compactification and apply our results to the theory of maximal and Hitchin representations.
For closed and oriented hyperbolic surfaces, a formula of Witten establishes an equality between two volume forms on the space of representations of the surface in a semisimple Lie group. One of the forms is a Reidemeister torsion, the other one is the power of the Atiyah-Bott-Goldman symplectic form. We introduce an holomorphic volume form on the space of representations of the circle, so that, for surfaces with boundary, it appears as peripheral term in the generalization of Witten's formula. We compute explicit volume and symplectic forms for some simple surfaces and for the Lie group SL(N,…
