Extended Bloch group and the Cheeger-Chern-Simons class (Q1882821)

The pre-Bloch group \({\mathcal P}({\mathbb C})\) over the complex numbers is the quotient of the free abelian group with basis \({\mathbb C}\setminus\{0,1\}\) by the ``five term relation''. This can be geometrically interpreted in the following way: \({\mathbb C}\setminus\{0,1\}\) can be seen as the set of non degenerate (i.e., with pairwise distinct vertices) ideal hyperbolic tetrahedra with vertices \(0,1,\infty,z\), where \(z\in{\mathbb C}\setminus\{0,1\}\). A triangulated ideal polyhedron may then be seen as a formal sum of ideal tetrahedra, i.e. as an element of the free abelian group. The five term relation takes into account the fact that a polyhedron with five vertices can be decomposed either as two tetrahedra sharing a face, or as three tetrahedra cyclically arranged around a common edge (a Pachner move). In this setting, it follows from a result of \textit{J. L. Dupont} and \textit{C.-H. Sah} [J. Pure Appl. Algebra 25, 159--195 (1982; Zbl 0496.52004)] that the five term relation implies that tetrahedra belonging to the same isometry class are identified. The Bloch group \({\mathcal B}({\mathbb C})\) is a subgroup of \({\mathcal P}({\mathbb C})\), more precisely it is the kernel of the map \({\mathcal P}({\mathbb C})\rightarrow{\mathbb C}^*\bigwedge_{\mathbb Z}{\mathbb C}^*\), where \({\mathbb C}^*\) is the multiplicative group of non-zero complex numbers, and the map is defined on the generators by \([z]\mapsto 2(z\wedge(1-z))\). It was proved by Bloch and Wigner that \({\mathcal B}({\mathbb C})\) is the quotient of the third homology group with integer coefficients of \(\text{PSL}_2({\mathbb C})\) endowed with the discrete topology by the group of roots of unity, i.e., there is an exact sequence \(0\rightarrow{\mathbb Q}/{\mathbb Z}\rightarrow H_3(PSL_2({\mathbb C});{\mathbb Z})\rightarrow{\mathcal B}({\mathbb C})\rightarrow 0\). In this paper the author considers the extended Bloch group \(\widehat{\mathcal B}({\mathbb C})\), which is the analog of the Bloch group when \({\mathbb C}\setminus\{0,1\}\) is replaced by a \({\mathbb Z}\times{\mathbb Z}\)-cover (and ideal tetrahedra are replaced by ideal ``flattened'' tetrahedra), and proves that the surjection of the above exact sequence lifts to an isomorphism \(\lambda:H_3( \text{PSL}_2({\mathbb C}));{\mathbb Z})\rightarrow\widehat{\mathcal B}({\mathbb C})\). This isomorphism is then used to give effective formulae for the Chern-Simons invariant of a hyperbolic \(3\)-manifold. Indeed, the author proves that the composition of \(\lambda\) with Roger's dilogarithm function \({\mathcal R}\) is the Cheeger-Chern-Simons class. Recall that Roger's dilogarithm function \({\mathcal R}:\widehat{\mathcal B}({\mathbb C})\rightarrow{\mathbb C}/\pi^2{\mathbb Z}\) is defined by \({\mathcal R}(z)=\log(z)\log(1-z)/2-\int_0^z\log(1-t)dt/t\). For each compact hyperbolic \(3\)-manifold \(M\) there is a natural fundamental class \([M]\in\)\break \(H_3(\text{PSL}_2({\mathbb C}))\) which is the image of the fundamental class of \(H_3(M)\), once \(H_3(M)\) is identified with \(H_3(\Gamma)\), where \(\Gamma\) is the discrete cocompact subgroup of \(\text{PSL}_2({\mathbb C})\) uniformizing \(M\). In this special case \({\mathcal R}\circ\lambda([M])\) is precisely \(i(\text{vol}(M)+i\text{\,cs}(M))\) where \(\text{vol}(M)\) denotes the hyperbolic volume and \(\text{cs}(M)\) the Chern-Simons invariant for the flat \(\text{PSL}_2({\mathbb C})\)-bundle over \(M\). The author shows that a natural fundamental class does exists for all complete hyperbolic \(3\)-manifolds of finite volume (\S 14). Explicit computations to illustrate the formulae are given for the figure-eight knot complement. The results contained in this paper should be compared to those of [math.GT/0306283] by \textit{S. Baseilhac} and \textit{R. Benedetti}, where a whole family of matrix dilogarithms generalizing Roger's dilogarithm is studied and new invariants (playing the role of the Cheeger-Chern-Simons class) are obtained.