We study deformations of complex hyperbolic surfaces which furnish the simplest examples of: (i) negatively curved Kähler manifolds and (ii) negatively curved Riemannian manifolds not having {\it constant} curvature. Although such complex surfaces may share the rigidity of quaternionic/octionic hyperbolic manifolds, our main goal is to show that they enjoy nevertheless the flexibility of low-dimensional real hyperbolic manifolds. Namely we define a class of ``bending" deformations of a given (Stein) complex surface $M$ associated with its closed geodesics provided that $M$ is homotopy equivalent to a Riemann surface whose embedding in $M$ has a non-trivial totally real geodesic part. Such bending deformations bend $M$ along its closed geodesics and are induced by equivariant quasiconformal homeomorphisms of the complex hyperbolic space and its Cauchy-Riemannian structure at infinity.
New examples of harmonic unit vector fields on hyperbolic 3-space are constructed by exploiting the reduction of symmetry arising from the foliation by horospheres. This is compared and contrasted with the analogous construction in Euclidean 3-space, using a foliation by planes, which produces some new examples of harmonic maps from 3-dimensional Euclidean domains to the 2-sphere. Finally, the harmonic unit vector field tangent to a parallel family of hyperbolic geodesics is shown to be unstable, by constructing a class of compactly supported energy-decreasing variations. All examples consider…
In this paper we show that bending a finite volume hyperbolic $d$-manifold $M$ along a totally geodesic hypersurface $Σ$ results in a properly convex projective structure on $M$ with finite volume. We also discuss various geometric properties of bent manifolds and algebraic properties of their fundamental groups. We then use this result to show in each dimension $d\geq 3$ there are examples finite volume, but non-compact, properly convex $d$-manifolds. Furthermore, we show that the examples can be chosen to be either strictly convex or non-strictly convex.
The problem of minimal distortion bending of smooth compact embedded connected Riemannian $n$-manifolds $M$ and $N$ without boundary is made precise by defining a deformation energy functional $Φ$ on the set of diffeomorphisms $\diff(M,N)$. We derive the Euler-Lagrange equation for $Φ$ and determine smooth minimizers of $Φ$ in case $M$ and $N$ are simple closed curves.
This paper concerns with deformations of noncompact complex hyperbolic manifolds (with locally Bergman metric), varieties of discrete representations of their fundamental groups into $PU(n,1)$ and the problem of (quasiconformal) stability of deformations of such groups and manifolds in the sense of L.Bers and D.Sullivan. Despite Goldman-Millson-Yue rigidity results for such complex manifolds of infinite volume, we present different classes of such manifolds that allow non-trivial (quasi-Fuchsian) deformations and point out that such flexible manifolds have a common feature being Stein spaces. …
We study relations between special elliptic isometries in the complex hyperbolic plane. Relations of lengths 2, 3, and 4 are fully classified. Some relative SU(2,1)-character varieties of the quadruply punctured sphere are described and applied to the study of length 5 relations.
A fundamental object in a hyperbolic 3-manifold M is its convex core C(M), defined as the smallest closed non-empty convex subset of M. We investigate the way the geometry of the boundary S of C(M) varies as we vary the hyperbolic metric of M. Thurston observed that the intrinsic metric of S is hyperbolic, and that its bending is described by a measured geodesic lamination. We show that, as the hyperbolic metric of the 3--manifold M varies differentiably, the hyperbolic metric of the surface S varies in a C^1, but usually not C^2, manner. Differentiability properties for the bending measured l…
Given a closed hyperbolic Riemannian surface, the aim of the present paper is to describe an explicit construction of smooth deformations of the hyperbolic metric into Finsler metrics that are not Riemannian and whose properties are such that the classical Riemannian results about entropy rigidity, marked length spectrum rigidity and boundary rigidity all fail to extend to the Finsler category.
For an asymptotically hyperbolic metric on the interior of a compact manifold with boundary, we prove that the resolvent and scattering operators are continuous functions of the metric in the appropriate topologies.
Let $λ_-$ and $λ_+$ be two bounded measured laminations on the hyperbolic disk $\mathbb H^2$, which "strongly fill" (definition below). We consider the left earthquakes along $λ_-$ and $λ_+$, considered as maps from the universal Teichmüller space $\mathcal T$ to itself, and we prove that the composition of those left earthquakes has a fixed point. The proof uses anti-de Sitter geometry. Given a quasi-symmetric homeomorphism $u:{\mathbb RP}^1\to {\mathbb RP}^1$, the boundary of the convex hull in $AdS^3$ of its graph in ${\mathbb RP}^1\times{\mathbb RP}^1\simeq \partial AdS^3$ is the disjoint …
This paper gives an exposition of the authors' harmonic deformation theory for 3-dimensional hyperbolic cone-manifolds. We discuss topological applications to hyperbolic Dehn surgery as well as recent applications to Kleinian group theory. A central idea is that local rigidity results (for deformations fixing cone angles) can be turned into effective control on the deformations that do exist. This leads to precise analytic and geometric versions of the idea that hyperbolic structures with short geodesics are close to hyperbolic structures with cusps. The paper also outlines a new harmonic defo…
We show that any compact orientable hyperbolic 3-cone-manifold with cone angle at most πcan be continuously deformed to a complete hyperbolic manifold homeomorphic to the complement of the singularity. This together with the local rigidity by Hodgson and Kerckhoff implies the global rigidity for compact orientable hyperbolic 3-cone-manifolds under the same angle assumption.
We develop the deformation theory of hyperbolic cone-3-manifolds with cone-angles less than $2π$, i.e. contained in the interval $(0,2π)$. In the present paper we focus on deformations keeping the topological type of the cone-manifold fixed. We prove local rigidity for such structures. This gives a positive answer to a question of A. Casson.
We prove that the deformation space AH(M) of marked hyperbolic 3-manifolds homotopy equivalent to a fixed compact 3-manifold M with incompressible boundary is locally connected at minimally parabolic points. Moreover, spaces of Kleinian surface groups are locally connected at quasiconformally rigid points. Similar results are obtained for deformation spaces of acylindrical 3-manifolds and Bers slices.
The Stoker problem, first formulated in 1968, consists in understanding to what extent a convex polyhedron is determined by its dihedral angles. By means of the double construction, this problem is intimately related to rigidity issues for 3-dimensional cone-manifolds. In a former paper, two such rigidity results were proven, implying that the infinitesimal version of the Stoker conjecture is true in the hyperbolic and Euclidean cases. In this second article, we prove that local rigidity holds and obtain that the space of convex hyperbolic polyhedra with given combinatorial type is locally par…
We develop and study quaternionic and octonionic analogies of Cartan angular and Toledo invariants that are well known in the complex hyperbolic space. Using such invariants we study quasifuchsian deformations (including bendings) of quaternionic and octonionic hyperbolic manifolds.
Let M be a complete finite-volume hyperbolic 3-manifold with compact non-empty geodesic boundary and k toric cusps, and let T be a geometric partially truncated triangulation of M. We show that the variety of solutions of consistency equations for T is a smooth manifold or real dimension 2k near the point representing the unique complete structure on M. As a consequence, the relation between deformations of triangulations and deformations of representations is completely understood, at least in a neighbourhood of the complete structure. This allows us to prove, for example, that small deformat…
This is the third in a series of papers constructing hyperbolic structures on all Haken three-manifolds. This portion deals with the mixed case of the deformation space for manifolds with incompressible boundary that are not acylindrical, but are more complicated than interval bundles over surfaces. This is a slight revision of a 1986 preprint, with a few figures added, and slight clarifications of some of the text, but with no attempt to connect this to later developments such as groups acting on R-trees, etc.
Let $X$ be a negatively curved symmetric space and $Γ$ a non-cocompact lattice in $\rm{Isom}(X)$. We show that small, parabolic-preserving deformations of $Γ$ into the isometry group of any negatively curved symmetric space containing $X$ remain discrete and faithful (the cocompact case is due to Guichard). This applies in particular to a version of Johnson-Millson bending deformations, providing for all $n$ infnitely many non-cocompact lattices in ${\rm SO}(n,1)$ which admit discrete and faithful deformations into ${\rm SU}(n,1)$. We also produce deformations of the figure-8 knot group into $…
The deformation theory of hyperbolic and Euclidean cone-manifolds with all cone angles less then 2π plays an important role in many problems in low dimensional topology and in the geometrization of 3-manifolds. Furthermore, various old conjectures dating back to Stoker about the moduli of convex hyperbolic and Euclidean polyhedra can be reduced to the study of deformations of cone-manifolds by doubling a polyhedron across its faces. This deformation theory has been understood by Hodgson and Kerckhoff when the singular set has no vertices, and by Weiß when the cone angles are less than π. We pr…
In two former papers, the authors independently proved that the space of hyperbolic cone-3-manifolds with cone angles less than 2π and fixed singular locus is locally parametrized by the cone angles. In this sequel, we investigate the local shape of the deformation space when the singular locus is no longer fixed, i.e. when the singular vertices can be split. We show that the different possible splittings correspond to specific pair-of-pants decompositions of the smooth parts of the links of the singular vertices, and that under suitable assumptions the corresponding subspace of deformations i…
We describe a family of representations of $π_1(Σ)$ in PU(2,1), where $Σ$ is a hyperbolic Riemann surface with at least one deleted point. This family is obtained by a bending process associated to an ideal triangulation of $Σ$. We give an explicit description of this family by describing a coordinates system in the spirit of shear coordinates on the Teichmüller space. We identify within this family new examples of discrete, faithful and type-preserving representations of $π_1(Σ)$. In turn, we obtain a 1-parameter family of embeddings of the Teichmüller space of $Σ$ in the PU(2,1)-representati…
We give necessary and sufficient conditions for an affine deformation of a Schottky subgroup of O(2,1) to act properly on affine space. There exists a real-valued biaffine map between the cohomology of the Schottky group and the space of geodesic currents on the corresponding hyperbolic surface S. For a fixed cohomology class, this map is uniformly positive or uniformly negative on the space of geodesic currents if and only if the corresponding affine deformation is proper. As a corollary, the deformation space of proper affine deformations is an open convex cone.
