A new invariant on hyperbolic Dehn surgery space (Q1601293)

The author defines an invariant of the incomplete hyperbolic structures on a 1-cusped finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold \(M\), called the ortholength invariant. This invariant \(Orth_K\) is defined in terms of a topological ideal triangulation \(K\) of \(M\), but it is actually independent of \(K\) in the sense that for ``generic'' \(K\), \(Orth_K\) determines the ortholength invariant corresponding to any other ideal triangulation. The main result of the paper says that away from a (possibly empty) subvariety of values, the ortholength invariant both locally parametrizes equivalence classes of hyperbolic structures and is a complete invariant of the Dehn fillings of \(M\) which admit a hyperbolic structure. The explicit formula for the ortholength invariant in terms of traces of the holonomies of certain loops in \(M\) is given. For a hyperbolic structure whose metric completion is a cone-manifold, the ortholength invariant is essentially a list of hyperbolic cosines of the complex distances from the cone-manifold's singular set to itself along the edges of \(K\). As an example, the ortholength invariant for the figure-eight knot complement is described.