Let M be a compact, hyperbolizable 3-manifold with nonempty incompressible boundary and let AH(π_1(M)) denote the space of (conjugacy classes of) discrete faithful representations of π_1(M) into PSL 2 (C). The components of the interior MP(π_1(M)) of AH(π_1(M)) (as a subset of the appropriate representation variety) are enumerated by the space A(M) of marked homeomorphism types of oriented, compact, irreducible 3-manifolds homotopy equivalent to M. In this paper, we give a topological enumeration of the components of the closure of MP(π_1(M)) and hence a conjectural topological enumeration of the components of AH(π_1(M)). We do so by characterizing exactly which changes of marked homeomorphism type can occur in the algebraic limit of a sequence of isomorphic freely indecomposable Kleinian groups. We use this enumeration to exhibit manifolds M for which AH(π_1(M)) has infinitely many components.
We give a brief overview of the current state of the study of the deformation theory of Kleinian groups. The topics covered include the definition of the deformation space of a Kleinian group and of several important subspaces; a discussion of the parametrization by topological data of the components of the closure of the deformation space; the relationship between algebraic and geometric limits of sequences of Kleinian groups; and the behavior of several geometrically and analytically interesting functions on the deformation space.
For any closed surface $S$ of genus $g \geq 2$, we show that the deformation space of marked hyperbolic 3-manifolds homotopy equivalent to $S$, $AH(S \times I)$, is not locally connected. This proves a conjecture of Bromberg who recently proved that the space of Kleinian punctured torus groups is not locally connected. Playing an essential role in our proof is a new version of the filling theorem that is based on the theory of cone-manifold deformations developed by Hodgson, Kerckhoff, and Bromberg.
We present examples of hyperbolizable 3-manifolds $M$ with the following property. Let $CC(π_1(M))$ denote the space of convex co-compact representations of $π_1(M)$. We show that for every $K\geq 1$ there exists a representation $ρ$ in $\bar {CC(π_1(M))}$ so that every $K$-quasiconformal deformation of $ρ$ lies in the closure of every component of $CC(π_1(M))$. The examples $M$ were discovered by Anderson and Canary.
One of the basic problems in studying topological structures of deformation spaces for Kleinian groups is to find a criterion to distinguish convergent sequences from divergent sequences. In this paper, we shall give a sufficient condition for sequences of Kleinian groups isomorphic to surface groups to diverge in the deformation spaces.
In a previous paper, we constructed an explicit dynamical correspondence between certain Kleinian reflection groups and certain anti-holomorphic rational maps on the Riemann sphere. In this paper, we show that their deformation spaces share many striking similarities. We establish an analogue of Thurston's compactness theorem for critically fixed anti-rational maps. We also characterize how deformation spaces interact with each other and study the monodromy representations of the union of all deformation spaces.
Let $Γ$ be a 3-dimensional Kleinian punctured torus group with ccidental parabolic transformations. The deformation space of $Γ$ in the group of Möbius transformations on the 2-sphere is well-known as the Maskit slice of punctured torus groups. In this paper, we study deformations $Γ'$ of $Γ$ in the group of Möbius transformations on the 3-sphere such that $Γ'$ does not contain screw parabolic transformations. We will show that the space of the deformations is realized as a domain of 3-space $\mathbb{R}^3$, which contains the Maskit slice of punctured torus groups as a slice through a plane. F…
We consider a compact orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold with a compressible boundary. Suppose that we are given a sequence of geometrically finite hyperbolic metrics whose conformal boundary structures at infinity diverge to a projective lamination. We prove that if this limit projective lamination is doubly incompressible, then the sequence has compact closure in the deformation space. As a consequence we generalise Thurston's double limit theorem and solve his conjecture on convergence of function groups affirmatively.
Consider a geometrically finite Kleinian group $G$ without parabolic or elliptic elements, with its Kleinian manifold $M=(\H^3\cup Ω_G)/G$. Suppose that for each boundary component of $M$, either a maximal and connected measured lamination in the Masur domain or a marked conformal structure is given. In this setting, we shall prove that there is an algebraic limit $Γ$ of quasi-conformal deformations of $G$ such that there is a homeomorphism $h$ from $\mathrm{Int} M$ to $\H^3/Γ$ compatible with the natural isomorphism from $G$ to $Γ$, the given laminations are unrealisable in $\H^3/Γ$, and the …
Fixing a closed hyperbolic surface S, we define a moduli space AI(S) of unmarked hyperbolic 3-manifolds homotopy equivalent to S. This 3-dimensional analogue of the moduli space M(S) of unmarked hyperbolic surfaces homeomorphic to S has bizarre local topology, possessing many points that are not closed. There is, however, a natural embedding of M(S) into AI(S) and a compactification of AI(S) such that this embedding extends to an embedding of the Deligne-Mumford compactification of M(S) into the compactification of AI(S).
We provide an infinite family of pared manifolds whose relative deformation spaces of hyperbolic structures on these manifolds are not locally connected. This is a natural extension of the recent result of Bromberg that shows the space of Kleinian punctured torus groups is not locally connected.
In this paper, we classify completely hyperbolic 3-manifolds corresponding to geometric limits of Kleinian surface groups isomorphic to $π_1(S)$ for a finite-type hyperbolic surface $S$. In the first of the three main theorems, we construct bi-Lipschitz model manifolds for such hyperbolic 3-manifolds, which have a structure called brick decomposition and are embedded in $S \times (0,1)$. In the second theorem, we show that conversely, any such model manifold admitting a brick decomposition with reasonable conditions is bi-Lipschitz homeomorphic to a hyperbolic manifold corresponding to some ge…
We review the theory of splittings of hyperbolic groups, as determined by the topology of the boundary. We give explicit examples of certain phenomena and then use this to describe limit sets of Kleinian groups up to homeomorphism.
In this paper we give a complete description of the set of discrete faithful representations SH(M) uniformizing a compact, orientable, hyperbolizable 3-manifold M with incompressible boundary, equipped with the strong topology, with the description given in term of the end invariants of the quotient manifolds. As part of this description, we introduce coordinates on SH(M) that extend the usual Ahlfors-Bers coordinates. We use these coordinates to show the local connectivity of SH(M) and study the action of the modular group of M on SH(M).
In earlier work we introduced geometrically natural probability measures on the group of all Möbius transformations in order to study "random" groups of Möbius transformations, random surfaces, and in particular random two-generator groups, that is groups where the generators are selected randomly, with a view to estimating the likely-hood that such groups are discrete and then to make calculations of the expectation of their associated parameters, geometry and topology. In this paper we continue that study and identify the precise probability that a Fuchsian group generated by two parabolic M…
In this article we survey and describe various aspects of the geometry and arithmetic of Kleinian groups - discrete nonelementary groups of isometries of hyperbolic $3$-space. In particular we make a detailed study of two-generator groups and discuss the classification of the arithmetic generalised triangle groups (and their near relatives). This work is mainly based around my collaborations over the last two decades with Fred Gehring and Colin Maclachlan, both of whom passed away in 2012. There are many others involved as well. Over the last few decades the theory of Kleinian groups has flour…
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.
Let M be a compact 3-manifold whose interior admits a complete hyperbolic structure. We let Lambda(M) be the supremum of the bottom eigenvalue of the Laplacian of N, where N varies over all hyperbolic 3-manifolds homeomorphic to the interior of M. Similarly, we let D(M) be the infimum of the Hausdorff dimensions of limit sets of Kleinian groups whose quotients are homeomorphic to the interior of M. We observe that Lambda(M)=D(M)(2-D(M)) if M is not handlebody or a thickened torus. We characterize exactly when Lambda(M)=1 and D(M)=1 in terms of the characteristic submanifold of the incompressib…
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 quasiconformally rigid points.
We survey work on the topology of the space AH(M) of all (marked) hyperbolic 3-manifolds homotopy equivalent to a fixed compact 3-manifold M with boundary. The interior of AH(M) is quite well-understood, but the topology of the entire space can be quite complicated. However, the topology is well-behaved at many points in the boundary of AH(M).
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…
The Brasselet number of a function $f$ with nonisolated singularities describes numerically the topological information of its generalized Milnor fibre. In this work, we consider two function-germs $f,g:(X,0)\rightarrow(\mathbb{C},0)$ such that $f$ has isolated singularity at the origin and $g$ has a stratified one-dimensional critical set. We use the Brasselet number to study the local topology a deformation $\tilde{g}$ of $g$ defined by $\tilde{g}=g+f^N,$ where $N\gg1$ and $N\in\mathbb{N}$. As an application of this study, we present a new proof of the Lê-Iomdin formula for the Brasselet num…
Thurston's ending lamination conjecture proposes that a finitely generated Kleinian group is uniquely determined (up to isometry) by the topology of its quotient and a list of invariants that describe the asymptotic geometry of its ends. We present a proof of this conjecture for punctured-torus groups. These are free two-generator Kleinian groups with parabolic commutator, which should be thought of as representations of the fundamental group of a punctured torus. As a consequence we verify the conjectural topological description of the deformation space of punctured-torus groups (including Be…
We consider the following question: Which parameters in the extension of a rational pleating ray across the boundary of $\Cal M$, the Maskit embedding of the Teichmüller space of once punctured tori correspond to a Kleinian group? Using methods of Keen and Series and Wright we prove a local result, stating that on each rational ray there is a sequence of parameters in $\overline\Bbb H\setminus\Cal M$ accumulating at the boundary point of $\Cal M$ on the ray. These are the unique parameters on the extended $p/q$ ray for which the special word $W_{p/q}$ is a primitive elliptic Möbius transformat…
Relations between the string topology of Chas and Sullivan and the homotopy skein modules of Hoste and Przytycki are studied. This provides new insight into the structure of homotopy skein modules and their meaning in the framework of quantum topology. Our results can be considered as weak extensions to all orientable 3-manifolds of classical results by Turaev and Goldman concerning intersection and skein theory on oriented surfaces.
First the title could be also understood as ``3-manifolds related by non-zero degree maps" or "Degrees of maps between 3-manifolds" for some aspects in this survey talk. The topology of surfaces was completely understood at the end of 19th century, but maps between surfaces kept to be an active topic in the 20th century and many important results just appeared in the last 25 years. The topology of 3-manifolds was well-understood only in the later 20th century, and the topic of non-zero degree maps between 3-manifolds becomes active only rather recently. We will survey questions and results in …
In the present paper, we study deformations of polar weighted homogeneous polynomials which are also polar weighted homogeneous polynomials. We describe a round handle decomposition of the Milnor fibration of a deformation of a polar weighted homogeneous polynomial concretely and give the number of round handles by the number of positive and negative components of the links of singularities appearing before and after the deformation. We also give a formula of characteristic polynomials of these singularities by using the decomposition of the monodromy of the Milnor fibration induced by a round…
We study the topology of singularities of $c$-optimal semicouplings in unequal dimension. Our main results describe homotopy-reductions from a source space $(X,σ)$ onto the singularities $Z_j$, $j\geq 0$ of $c$-optimal semicouplings whenever $(Y, τ)$ is a Riemannian target space and $c$ is a cost on $X\times Y$ satisfying some general assumptions (A0)--(A5). We construct continuous strong deformation retracts $X\leadsto Z_j$ whenever a condition called Uniform Halfspace (UHS) condition is satisfied along appropriate subsets. This article summarizes some results from the author's PhD thesis (20…
In this paper we develop a new theory of infinitesimal harmonic deformations for compact hyperbolic 3-manifolds with ``tubular boundary''. In particular, this applies to complements of tubes of radius at least $R_0 = \arctanh(1/\sqrt{3}) \approx 0.65848$ around the singular set of hyperbolic cone manifolds, removing the previous restrictions on cone angles. We then apply this to obtain a new quantitative version of Thurston's hyperbolic Dehn surgery theorem, showing that all generalized Dehn surgery coefficients outside a disc of ``uniform'' size yield hyperbolic structures. Here the size of a…
The moduli space of isometry classes of Riemannian structures on a smooth manifold was emphasized by J.A.Wheeler in his superspace formalism of quantum gravity. A natural question concerning it is: What is a natural topology on such moduli space that reflects best quantum fluctuations of the geometries within the Planck's scale? This very question has been addressed by B.DeWitt and others. In this article we introduce Gromov's $\varepsilon$-approximation topology on the above moduli space for a closed smooth manifold. After giving readers some feel of this topology, we prove that each conforma…
We study elliptic fibrations by analyzing suitable deformations of the fibrations and vanishing cycles. We introduce geometric string junctions and describe some of their properties. We show how the structure of the geometric string junctions is naturally related to the Lie algebra structures of the associated singularities. One application in physics is in F-theory, where our novel approach connecting deformations and Lie algebras describes the structure of generalized type IIB seven-branes and string junction states which end on them.
We study proper, isometric actions of nonsolvable discrete groups Gamma on the 3-dimensional Minkowski space R^{2,1} as limits of actions on the 3-dimensional anti-de Sitter space AdS^3. To each such action is associated a deformation of a hyperbolic surface group Gamma_0 inside O(2,1). When Gamma_0 is convex cocompact, we prove that Gamma acts properly on R^{2,1} if and only if this group-level deformation is realized by a deformation of the quotient surface that everywhere contracts distances at a uniform rate. We give two applications in this case. (1) Tameness: A complete flat spacetime is…
We study geometry, topology and deformation spaces of noncompact complex hyperbolic manifolds (geometrically finite, with variable negative curvature), whose properties make them surprisingly different from real hyperbolic manifolds with constant negative curvature. This study uses an interaction between Kähler geometry of the complex hyperbolic space and the contact structure at its infinity (the one-point compactification of the Heisenberg group), in particular an established structural theorem for discrete group actions on nilpotent Lie groups.
Let G be a finitely generated group. Two simplicial G-trees are said to be in the same deformation space if they have the same elliptic subgroups (if H fixes a point in one tree, it also does in the other). Examples include Culler-Vogtmann's outer space, and spaces of JSJ decompositions. We discuss what features are common to trees in a given deformation space, how to pass from one tree to all other trees in its deformation space, and the topology of deformation spaces. In particular, we prove that all deformation spaces are contractible complexes.
Let G be a complex reductive linear algebraic group and let K be a maximal compact subgroup of G. Given a nilpotent group Γgenerated by r elements, we consider the representation spaces Hom(Γ,G) and Hom(Γ,K) with the natural topology induced from an embedding into G^r and K^r respectively. The goal of this paper is to prove that there is a strong deformation retraction of Hom(Γ,G) onto Hom(Γ,K). We also obtain a strong deformation retraction of the geometric invariant theory quotient Hom(Γ,G)//G onto Hom(Γ,K)/K.
We show that there are homotopy equivalences $h:N\to M$ between closed manifolds which are induced by cell-like maps $p:N\to X$ and $q:M\to X$ but which are not homotopic to homeomorphisms. The phenomenon is based on construction of cell-like maps that kill certain $\mathbb L$-classes. The image space in these constructions is necessarily infinite-dimensional. In dimension $>6$ we classify all such homotopy equivalences. As an application, we show that such homotopy equivalences are realized by deformations of Riemannian manifolds in Gromov-Hausdorff space preserving a contractibility function…
This work presents a rigorous mathematical formulation for topology optimization of a macrostructure undergoing ductile failure. The prediction of ductile solid materials which exhibit dominant plastic deformation is an intriguingly challenging task and plays an extremely important role in various engineering applications. Here, we rely on the phase-field approach to fracture which is a widely adopted framework for modeling and computing the fracture failure phenomena in solids. The first objective is to optimize the topology of the structure in order to minimize its mass, while accounting for…
Let $Γ=\langle a,b | a b^{p} a^{-1} = b^{q}\rangle$ be a Baumslag--Solitar group and $G$ be a complex reductive algebraic group with maximal compact subgroup $K<G$. We show that, when $p$ and $q$ are relatively prime with distinct absolute values, there is a strong deformation retraction retraction of $Hom(Γ,G)$ onto $Hom(Γ,K)$.
We study the topology of the space $\d\K^n$ of complete convex hypersurfaces of $\R^n$ which are homeomorphic to $\R^{n-1}$. In particular, using Minkowski sums, we construct a deformation retraction of $\d\K^n$ onto the Grassmannian space of hyperplanes. So every hypersurface in $\d \K^n$ may be flattened in a canonical way. Further, the total curvature of each hypersurface evolves continuously and monotonically under this deformation. We also show that, modulo proper rotations, the subspaces of $\d\K^n$ consisting of smooth, strictly convex, or positively curved hypersurfaces are each contra…
We introduce the $2$-nodal spherical deformation of certain singular fibers of genus $2$ fibrations, and use such deformations to construct various examples of simply connected minimal symplectic $4$-manifolds with small topology. More specifically, we construct new exotic minimal symplectic $4$-manifolds homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to ${\mathbb{CP}}^{2}\#6({\overline{\mathbb{CP}}^{2}})$, ${\mathbb{CP}}^{2}\#7({\overline{\mathbb{CP}}^{2}})$, and $3{\mathbb{CP}}^{2}\#k({\overline{\mathbb{CP}}^{2}})$ for $k=16, 17, 18, 19$ using combinations of such deformations, symplectic blowups, and (…
