Isometry groups of hyperbolic three-manifolds which are cyclic branched coverings (Q1282285)

The authors study the isometry groups of hyperbolic 3-manifolds \(M\) which are strongly cyclic branched coverings of a hyperbolic link \(L\) in the 3-sphere, i.e. every meridian of \(L\) is mapped to a generator of \(Z_n\) by the monodromy map \(\pi_1(S^3 \smallsetminus L)\to Z_n\). Suppose that the orbifold \({\mathcal O}_n(L)\), whose underlying space is the 3-sphere and whose singular set (of branching index \(n)\) is \(L\), is hyperbolic. The manifold \(M\) is said to have no hidden symmetries (with respect to the given branched covering) if every isometry of \(M\) is the lift of some isometry of \({\mathcal O}_n(L)\). It follows from Thurston's hyperbolic surgery theorem that \(M\) has no hidden symmetries if \(n\) is sufficiently large. The main result of the paper is that there is a constant (depending on the volume of the complement of the link) such that \(M\) has no hidden symmetries for all \(n\) greater than this constant. Furthermore, explicit examples show that a universal constant working for all hyperbolic links does not exist. Several results and applications on the computation of the order and on the structure of the isometry group of \(M\) complete this interesting paper.