Volume and angle structures on 3-manifolds (Q929269)

This is a research announcement with the purpose to propose an approach to find constant curvature metrics on triangulated closed 3-manifolds, using a finite dimensional variational method whose energy function is the volume. These ideas generalize a program introduced by Casson (see \textit{M. Lackenby} [Invent. Math. 140, 243--282 (2000; Zbl 0947.57016)] and \textit{I. Rivin} [Adv. Appl. Math. 31, 242--271 (2003; Zbl 1028.52006)]) for finding hyperbolic metrics on compact ideally triangulated 3-manifolds with torus boundary. An angle structure on a closed triangulated 3-manifold \((M,T)\) is an assignment of a number, called the dihedral angle, to each edge of each 3-simplex in the triangulation \(T\) such that (1) the dihedral angles at three edges of the same 3-simplex sharing a common vertex are the inner angles of a spherical triangle (that is the assignment is an angle structure on each 3-simplex of \(T\)) and (2) the sum of the dihedral angles at each edge in \(T\) is \(2\pi\). By a result of Kitaev and the author, any closed 3-manifold has a triangulation supporting an angle structure. Via the Schlaefli formula and the Cosine Law, it is possible to define the volume of a 3-simplex with an angle structure, as a function on dihedral angles, and then to extend it to the case of a closed triangulated 3-manifold \((M,T)\) with an angle structure, by taking the sum of the volumes of all 3-simplexes in \(T\). The main result of the paper is that, when the moduli space \(AS(M,T)\) of all angle structures on \((M,T)\) (which is a bounded convex polytope in an Euclidean space) is not empty, the volume function could be extended continuously to the compact closure of \(AS(M,T)\). Moreover, if the volume function has a local maximum point in \(AS(M,T)\) then either (a) \(M\) supports a constant sectional curvature Riemannian metric or (b) there exists a normal surface of positive Euler characteristic in the triangulation \(T\) such that it intersects each 3-simplex in at most one normal disk. In particular if \(T\) has only one vertex then the normal surface in case (b) is non-separating. The author conjectures that also a maximum point in \(\partial AS(M,T)\) will give rise either to a geometric structure on the manifold or to a special normal surface of non-negative Euler characteristic in the triangulation.