Integral foliated simplicial volume of hyperbolic 3-manifolds (Q329560)

The simplicial volume \(\| M\| \) of a closed manifold \(M\) is defined as the infimum of \(\sum | a_i| \) over all its fundamental cycles \(\sum a_i\sigma_i\). A long-standing conjecture of Gromov asserts that for aspherical manifolds the implication \[ \| M\| =0\Longrightarrow \chi(M)=0 \] should relate simplicial volume and Euler characteristic. Gromov suggested an approach towards this conjecture via considering the so-called foliated simplicial volume \(| M| \). This is defined by considering auxiliary probability spaces \(X\) with a measure-preserving \(\pi_1M\)-action and looking at cycles \[ \sum f_i\otimes \tilde{\sigma}_i\in L^\infty(X,{\mathbb Z})\otimes_{{\mathbb Z}\pi_1M}C_*(\widetilde{M},{\mathbb Z}) \] which under the natural map \(f_i\to a_i:=\int_Xf_i\) map to a fundamental cycle of \(M\). The infimum of \(\sum \int_X | f_i| \) over all these cycles defines the parametrised simplicial volume \(| M| ^X\), and the infimum of \(| M| ^X\) over all parameter spaces \(X\) defines the foliated simplicial volume \(| M| \). One can estimate \(L^2\)-Betti numbers in terms of \(| M| \) and thus Gromov's conjecture would be implied if one could prove \(\| M\| =| M| \) for aspherical manifolds. The paper under review develops several basic results for the foliated simplicial volume and uses them to confirm \(\| M\| =| M| \) for hyperbolic \(3\)-manifolds and also for Seifert \(3\)-manifolds with infinite fundamental group. The properties obtained for the parametrised simplicial volume include an inequality \(| M| ^Z\leq\inf | M| ^{X_i}\) for products \(Z=\prod X_i\), additivity for convex combinations of measures, a proof that foliated simplicial volume can be computed by considering ergodic parameter spaces only, and results on induction and restriction of parameter spaces which in particular imply that foliated simplicial volume is multiplicative under finite coverings. The main result is a proportionality principle for the parametrised simplicial volume: if \(\Omega\) is a measure coupling for \(\Gamma=\pi_1M,\Lambda=\pi_1N\), i.e., both groups act on \(\Omega\) with a finite measure fundamental domain \(X_\Gamma\) and \(X_\Lambda\) respectively, then \[ | M| ^{\Lambda\backslash\Omega}=c_\Omega | N | ^{\Gamma\backslash\Omega}, \] where \(c_\Omega=\mu(X_\Lambda)/\mu(X_\Gamma)\) is the so-called coupling constant. In particular \[ | M| =c_\Omega| N| \] if the actions of \(\Gamma\) on \(\Lambda\backslash \Omega\) and of \(\Lambda\) on \(\Gamma\backslash\Omega\) are both mixing. (Which by the Moore ergodicity theorem is the case for two uniform lattices in a Lie group \(G\), considering \(G\) as a measure coupling.) The idea of the proof is to consider a cocycle \(\alpha_\Lambda:\Gamma\times X_\Lambda\to \Lambda\) defined by the condition that \(\alpha(\gamma,x)\) sends \(\gamma x\) into \(X_\Lambda\), and a similarly defined \(\alpha_\Gamma\), to get morphisms \[ H_n(\Gamma,L^1(X_\Lambda,{\mathbb Z}))\to H_n(\Lambda,L^1(X_\Gamma,{\mathbb Z})) \] and vice versa, which can be used to translate parametrised fundamental cycles of one manifold into parametrised fundamental cycles of the other manifold. In particular this implies proportionality between \(| M| \) and hyperbolic volume for hyperbolic manifolds in any given dimension. While in higher dimensions the question on the value of the proportionality constant remains open, in dimension \(3\) the authors can adapt an argument from \textit{S. Francaviglia} et al. [J. Topol. 5, No. 4, 977--1010 (2012; Zbl 1266.57015)] to show \(| M| =\| M\| \) for hyperbolic \(3\)-manifolds. Namely, they look at Dehn fillings of the 5-chain link complement. The latter has a decomposition into \(10\) regular ideal tetrahedra, hence its simplicial volume and its stable complexity satisfy \(\| M\| =c_S(M)=10\). For the Dehn fillings \(M_n\) of a cusped manifold \(M\) one has \(\| M_n\| \to\| M\| \) and the authors prove \(| M_n| \leq c_S(M)\), which in the case of the 5-chain link implies \[ \| M\| \leq| M| =\frac{\| M_n\| }{\| M\| }| M_n| =\| M_n\| \to \| M\| , \] thus \(\| M\| =| M| \).