Volumes of hyperbolic manifolds with geodesic boundary (Q1338224)

The author naturally extends the theorem of \textit{K. Böröczky} [Acta Math. Acad. Sci. Hung. 32, 243-261 (1978; Zbl 0422.52011)], on optimal sphere packings to an analogue: If a region in \(H^ n\) bounded by hyperplanes has a hypersphere packing of distance \(r\) about its boundary, then, in some sense, the ratio of its volume to the volume of its boundary is at least that of a regular truncated simplex of edge length \(2r\). This gives a natural lower bound of the ratio \(\text{vol }N/\text{vol }\partial N\) for all complete hyperbolic \(n\)-manifolds \((n \geq 3)\) of finite volume with non-empty totally geodesic boundary. In a more concrete form he obtains the following Theorem. Among complete 3- manifolds whose boundary is a totally geodesic closed surface of fixed Euler characteristic \(\chi < 0\), each one having the minimal volume is decomposed into \(g = 1 - \chi/2\) truncated regular simplices of dihedral angle \(\pi /3g\). This gives an alternative proof of the theorem in \textit{S. Kojima} and the author [J. Differ. Geom. 34, No. 1, 175-192 (1991; Zbl 0729.53042)] which is obtained as a Corollary. Among compact hyperbolic 3-manifolds with non-empty totally geodesic boundary, each one having the minimum volume is decomposed into two truncated regular simplices of dihedral angle \(\pi/6\). The minimal volume is \(\approx 6.4520\).