Straightening cell decompositions of cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds (Q1287009)

Let \(M\) be an oriented cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold and let \(\tau\) be a topological ideal triangulation of \(M\). The author gives necessary and sufficient conditions for \(\tau\) to be isotopic to an ideal geodesic triangulation. The basic idea is that one can extend the developing map \(\text{dev}: \widetilde M\to{\mathbb{H}}^3\) to the vertices of \(\widetilde\tau\) to \(\overline {\mathbb{H}^3}\) and look at the induced geodesic triangulation of \(\overline {\mathbb{H}^3}\). The author also gives a characterization for \(\tau\) to flatted into partially flat triangulations and proves that straightening combinatorially equivalent topological ideal cell decompositions gives the same geodesic decomposition, up to isometry.