Dehn fillings of large hyperbolic 3-manifolds (Q1424014)

Let \(M\) be a compact orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold whose boundary is a torus. A slope \(r\) on \(\partial M\) (the isotopy class of an essential simple closed curve) is exceptional if the closed 3-manifold \(M(r)\) is not hyperbolic. It is expected that the diameter of the set of exceptional slopes is at most 5 when \(M\) is large, i.e., contains a closed incompressible surface (and 8 in general; the distance between two slopes is their minimal geometric intersection number). In the present paper it is shown that this diameter is at most 5 and the number of exceptional slopes at most 7 if the first Betti number \(b_1(M) \geq 2\), and at most 4 resp. 6 if \(b_1(M) \geq 3\). The case when \(M(r)\) is either reducible or toroidal can be understood through the application of known results, and the main contribution of the present paper deals with the possibility that \(M(r)\) is Seifert fibered. A key special case arises when \(M\) is the exterior of a knot \(\gamma\) which lies in a fibre \(S\) of a surface bundle over the circle with monodromy \(f:S \to S\); this is handled by showing that given a pseudo-Anosov mapping class \(f\) of a surface and a simple closed curve \(\gamma\) in the surface, then 5 is an upper bound for the diameter of integers \(n\) for which the composition of \(f\) with the \(n^{th}\) power of a Dehn twist along \(\gamma\) is not pseudo-Anosov (improving a result of \textit{A. Fahti} [Invent. Math. 87, 129--151 (1987; Zbl 0618.58027)]). For the case of large manifolds of first Betti number 1, partial results are obtained, assuming for instance the existence of a closed essential surface in \(M\) which becomes compressible in \(M(r)\) only for finitely many slopes \(r\).