Immersed essential surfaces and Dehn surgery. (Q1426427)

Given a closed imbedded surface \(F\) that is essential in a compact, orientable, irreducible \(3\)-manifold \(M\) (that is, incompressible and not homotopic into \(\partial M\)), one may ask which Dehn fillings of a torus boundary component \(T_1\) of \(M\) leave \(F\) incompressible. A slope \(\beta\) in \(T_1\) is called coannular (for \(F\)) if a loop in \(T_1\) with slope \(\beta\) is homotopic in \(M\) to \(F\). When this occurs, \(F\) is compressible in the Dehn-filled manifold \(M(\beta)\) in which \(\beta\) bounds a meridian disk in the solid torus added along \(T_1\). This is not, however, the only way that \(F\) can be compressible in a Dehn filling of \(M\) along \(T_1\), and the problem of understanding the \(M(\gamma)\) in which \(F\) is compressible has been extensively studied. It is known that an imbedded essential \(F\) can have only one coannular slope \(\beta\), and that \(F\) remains incompressible in all \(M(\gamma)\) for which \(\Delta(\gamma, \beta) >1\), where \(\Delta(\gamma, \beta)\) is the minimal geometric intersection number of \(\gamma\) and \(\beta\) on \(T_1\) [see \textit{M. Culler}, \textit{C. Gordon}, \textit{J. Luecke} and \textit{P. B. Shalen}, Bull. Am. Math. Soc., New Ser. 13, 43--45 (1985; Zbl 0571.57008)]. If \(F\) has no coannular slope in \(T_1\), then it is compressible in \(M(\gamma)\) for at most three \(\gamma\) [see \textit{Y. Q. Wu}, Topology 31, No. 2, 271--279 (1992; Zbl 0872.57022)]. In this paper, the author examines the corresponding problem for immersed surfaces. Essential (\(\pi_1\)-injective and not homotopic into \(\partial M\)) immersed surfaces are much more common than imbedded ones. Suppose that \(F\colon S\to M\) is essential and almost everywhere an immersion, where \(S\) is a surface of finite type, and \(T\) is a union of boundary tori of \(M\). A slope \(\beta\) in a torus of \(T\) is called coannular if some multiple of a loop of slope \(\beta\) is homotopic to the image of some loop of \(S\). A multiple slope \(\gamma=(\gamma_1,\ldots,\gamma_n)\), consisting of one \(\gamma_i\) in each torus \(T_i\) of \(T\), determines a Dehn filling \(M(\gamma)\) in which each \(\gamma_i\) bounds a meridian disk in an added solid torus. For a set \(\beta\) of slopes in \(T\), define \(\Delta(\gamma,\beta)\) to be the minimum of \(\Delta(\gamma_i,\beta_j)\) where \(\beta_j\in \beta\) and \(\beta_j\subset T_i\). The author proves that if the interior of \(M\) is hyperbolic, then the set \(\beta\) of slopes in \(T\) that are coannular for \(F\) is finite, and that there are an integer \(K\) and a finite set of slopes \(\Lambda\) on \(T\) such that \(F\) remains incompressible in \(M(\gamma)\) for all \(\gamma\) such that \(\Delta(\gamma,\beta)\geq K\) and no \(\gamma_i\) is in \(\Lambda\). Examples show that there is no universal bound on \(K\). The assumption of hyperbolicity is necessary, although there is a non-hyperbolic version of the theorem in which one further excludes all slopes of distance at most one from the slope of a fiber in \(T\) of a Seifert-fibered component of the characteristic submanifold of~\(M\). Important examples of closed immersed essential surfaces are those obtained from a properly imbedded essential compact surface \(F\) by Freedman tubing, that is, by adding to \(F\) immersed annuli that are contained in torus boundary components of \(M\), and whose boundary circles are circles of \(\partial F\). Several authors, notably \textit{D. Cooper} and \textit{D. D. Long} [in Geom. Topol. 5, 347--367 (2001; Zbl 1009.57017)], have given conditions under which the resulting surface is essential. The author of the present paper examines the Freedman tubing construction starting from immersed surfaces. In particular, he proves that when the interior of \(M\) is hyperbolic, and the immersed \(F\) is geometrically finite, meaning that the covering space of \(M\) corresponding to the image of \(\pi_1(F)\) is geometrically finite, then there is a constant \(K\) such that if each of the added annuli wraps at least \(K\) times around the boundary torus that contains it, then the resulting surface is \(\pi_1\)-injective. As with the imbedded case, the assumption that \(F\) is geometrically finite is necessary, since otherwise \(F\) would be a virtual fiber and no Freedman tubing could be essential. The proofs of these results make considerable use of differential geometry, specifically of a careful estimate of an upper bound for the area of a minimal disk spanned by a piecewise-geodesic loop in a negatively curved \(3\)-manifold with hyperbolic ends. It is assumed that the corners of the loop lie in hyperbolic portions of \(M\), and the estimate involves the exterior angles at these corners. The proofs of \(\pi_1\)-injectivity then proceed by showing that any minimal spanning disk for a loop in \(F\) would have to have area larger than this estimate.