Orderability and Dehn filling (Q1746305)

For an irreducible rational homology \(3\)-sphere \(Y\), it has been conjectured that the following are equivalent; (1) the fundamental group of \(Y\) is left-orderable, (2) \(Y\) is not an \(L\)-space, (3) \(Y\) admits a coorientable taut foliation. This has been confirmed for graph manifolds, many branched covers of knots, and more than 100,000 small-volume hyperbolic \(3\)-manifolds. The first result of the paper under review claims that if \(M\) is the exterior of a knot in an integral homology \(3\)-sphere which satisfies a certain condition, called lean, and its Alexander polynomial has a simple root on the unit circle, then there exists \(a>0\) such that for any rational number \(r\in (-a,a)\) the Dehn filling \(M(r)\) has left-orderable fundamental group. As a corollary, if \(M\) fibers over the circle in addition to the above assumptions, then all \(M(r)\) satisfy the above conjecture. The second result claims that if \(K\) is a hyperbolic knot in an integral homology \(3\)-sphere and the trace field of the knot exterior \(M\) has a real embedding, then (1) the \(n\)-fold cyclic branched cover of \(K\) has left-orderable fundamental group for sufficiently large \(n\), (2) there is an interval of the form \((-\infty,a)\) or \((a,\infty)\) such that the Dehn filling \(M(r)\) has left-orderable fundamental group for all \(r\) in the interval, and (3) there exists \(b>0\) such that \(M(r)\) has left-orderable fundamental group for any \(r\in (-b,b)-\{0\}\). The paper gives a new framework for systematically studying representations of \(3\)-manifold groups into the universal covering group \(\tilde{G}\) of \(\mathrm{PSL}_2\mathbb{R}\). The central object is an infinite graph called the translation extension locus. Roughly speaking, for the knot exterior \(M\) in a rational homology \(3\)-sphere, the translation extension locus is the image of some subset of the representation space of \(\pi_1M\) into \(\tilde{G}\) under the map induced by the inclusion \(\partial M\) into \(M\). It is drawn in \(H^1(\partial M;\mathbb{R})=\mathbb{R}^2\), and many computer-generated pictures are given in the paper. The usage is that if the line of slope \(-r\) meets the translation extension locus away from the origin, then \(M(r)\) has left-orderable fundamental group. Such an intersection point implies a nontrivial homomorphism of \(\pi_1M(r)\) into \(\tilde{G}\). Regarding \(\tilde{G}\) as a subgroup of \(\mathrm{Homeo}^+(\mathbb{R})\) which is left-orderable, a result from \textit{S. Boyer} et al. [Ann. Inst. Fourier 55, No. 1, 243--288 (2005; Zbl 1068.57001)] guarantees that \(\pi_1M(r)\) is left-orderable.