The first Betti number of the smallest closed hyperbolic 3-manifold (Q1382173)

Continuing previous work of the authors' it is shown in the present paper that the first Betti number of a closed orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold of minimal volume is at most two. We recall that a torsion free Kleinian group \(\Gamma\) is called topologically tame if the corresponding 3-manifold \(M= \mathbb{H}^3/\Gamma\) is the interior of a compact manifold (so the ends of \(M\) are of the form (surface \(\times\) open interval)); it is conjectured that every torsion free Kleinian group is topologically tame. In the present paper the authors prove that if \(M= \mathbb{H}^3/\Gamma\) is a closed orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold such that every 2-generator subgroup of \(\Gamma=\pi_1M\) is topologically tame and of infinite index then the volume of \(M\) exceeds 0.94689 and hence is larger than the volume 0.94270... of the hyperbolic 3-manifold of smallest known volume (obtained by \((-5/1, -5/2)\) Dehn surgery on the two components of the Whitehead link). This improves a bound in a previous paper which was below the above smallest known volume; in the same paper the authors proved also that the above hypothesis on the 2-generator subgroups is fulfilled if the first Betti number of \(M\) is at least three. It follows that the fundamental group of a hyperbolic 3-manifold \(M\) of minimal volume either has a 2-generator subgroup of finite index or a 2-generator subgroup which is not topologically tame, and that the first Betti number of \(M\) is at most two. A detailed exposition of the methods is given in the introduction of the paper.