Nearly Fuchsian surface subgroups of finite covolume Kleinian groups (Q2037839)

In this paper, the authors study the geometry of finite volume, complete, noncompact hyperbolic 3-manifolds \(M=\mathbb{H}^3/\Gamma\), or, equivalently, their associated Kleinian groups \(\Gamma < \mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{C})\). They call a surface subgroup \(H< \Gamma\) \(K\)-quasi-Fuchsian if its action on \(\partial \mathbb{H}^3\) is \(K\)-quasiconformally conjugate to the action of a cocompact Fuchsian group of \(\mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{R})\). They say that a collection of quasi-Fuchsian surface subgroups is ubiquitous if for any pair of hyperbolic planes \(\Pi, \Pi'\) in \(\mathbb{H}^3\) whose distance is positive, there exists a surface subgroup whose boundary circle lies between \(\partial \Pi\) and \(\partial \Pi'\). The main result in this paper is that if \(\mathbb{H}^3/\Gamma\) is non-compact and has finite volume, then, for all \(K>1\), the set of \(K\)-quasi-Fuchsian surface subgroups of \(\Gamma\) is ubiquitous. The authors make a relation with the question of whether lattices in Lie groups contain surface subgroups that are ``close'' to lying in a given subgroup isomorphic to \(\mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{R})\). They explain the relation with the Ehrenpreis conjecture and with Kahn and Markovic's strategy of building quasi-Fuchsian subgroups of the fundamental group of a compact hyperbolic 3-manifold using good pants. As a corollary of their results, the authors prove, using previous work of Kahn and Markovic, that every finite covolume Kleinian group has a nearly Fuchsian surface subgroup. The paper contains several interesting geometrical constructions in hyperbolic space.