Volume-convergent sequences of Haken 3-manifolds. (Q1408177)

A closed manifold \(M^n\) of dimension \(n\) is said to dominate another closed manifold \(N^n\) of the same dimension if there is a nonzero degree map \(f:M\to N\). The paper under review is concerned with the following question: how many closed \(3\)-manifolds can be dominated by a given closed \(3\)-manifold? Many results are known in this direction under geometric assumtions. For example, \textit{T. Soma} [J. Differ. Geom. 49, No.3, 517-546 (1998; Zbl 0990.57005)] proved that a closed \(3\)-manifold dominates only finitely many closed hyperbolic \(3\)-manifolds; \textit{C. Hayat-Legrand}, \textit{S. Wang} and \textit{H. Zieschang} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 130, No.10, 3117-3123 (2002; Zbl 1002.57042)] showed that any orientable closed \(3\)-manifold \(1\)-dominates finitely many spherical \(3\)-manifolds; \textit{S. Wang} and \textit{Q. Zhou} [Math. Ann. 322, No.3, 525-535 (2002; Zbl 0992.57017)] proved the same result when the target manifold has one of the following geometries: \(\widetilde{SL_2({\mathbb{R}})}, {H}^2\times {E}^1, Sol, Nil\). Let \(Vol(M)\) denote the Gromov simplicial volume of a manifold \(M\). Let \(M\) be a closed orientable \(3\)-manifold and let \((N_i)_{i\in { N}}\) be a sequence of closed \(3\)-manifolds and \(f_i:M\to N_i\) be nonzero degree maps for each \(i\). Assume that \(\lim_{i\to\infty}(deg(f_i)\times Vol(N_i))=Vol(M)\). The author calls such a sequence of manifolds \((N_i)\) a volume-convergent sequence dominated by \(M\). The main result of the paper is that any volume-convergent sequence of Haken \(3\)-manifolds dominated by a closed orientable \(3\)-manifold \(M\) is finite up to homeomorphism. An application of this result to graph manifolds is also deduced in the paper.