Geodesic planes in geometrically finite manifolds (Q1757427)

From the introduction: Let \(M\) be a hyperbolic manifold of dimension 3. Let \(f:\mathbb{H}^2\rightarrow M\) be a totally geodesic immersion of the hyperbolic plane. \textit{M. Ratner} [Duke Math. J. 63, No. 1, 235--280 (1991; Zbl 0733.22007)] and \textit{N. A. Shah} [in: Group theory from a geometrical viewpoint. Proceedings of a workshop, held at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, 26 March to 6 April 1990. Singapore: World Scientific. 718--732 (1991; Zbl 0846.53041)] independently classified the possibility for the closures of \(f(\mathbb{H}^2)\) inside \(M\), in the case when \(M\) has finite volume. Recently, in [\textit{C. T. McMullen} et al., Invent. Math. 209, No. 2, 425--461 (2017; Zbl 1383.53044)], a complete classification was obtained in the case when \(M\) is a convex cocompact manifold whose convex core has a totally geodesic boundary. This class of manifolds will be referred to as rigid acylindrical manifolds. In both cases, it is shown that such closures are always immersed submanifolds of \(M\)....In this article, we study the rigidity problem of closures of geodesic plane immersions in geometrically finite manifolds containing rank-1 cusps. We begin by showing that a certain desirable recurrence property of unipotent orbits (\(K\)-thickness) fails generically in this setting, Theorem 1.1. This property plays a crucial role in the article of McMullen, Mohammadi and Oh (op. cit). We then formulate sufficient conditions for certain geodesic plane immersions to be dense, Theorems 1.2 and 1.3. In addition, when the limit set associated with our Kleinian manifold \(M\) is a circle packing, we show that a closed geodesic plane immersion gives rise to a geometrically surface (i.e., having a finitely generated fundamental group) and further characterize the limit set of such a surface, Theorem 1.4. This answers a question raised in the article of McMullen, Mohammadi and Oh (op. cit.) in our setting. Finally, we establish the existence of properly immersed elementary surfaces (Theorem 1.5) and study the situation when a compact set meets infinitely many of them (Proposition 1).