A small closed convex projective 4-manifold via Dehn filling (Q2075316)

A real convex projective structure on a manifold is a \((\operatorname{PGL}_{n+1}(\mathbb{R}), \mathbb{RP}^n)\)-structure such that its developing image in \(\mathbb{RP}^n\) is convex. Real convex projective structures embrace hyperbolic structures but have more flexibility. This might be illustrated by the Gromov-Thurston manifolds which are real convex projective manifolds but do not admit any hyperbolic structure. The authors construct a convex projective 4-manifold \(X\) as a Dehn filling of some cusped hyperbolic 4-manifold \(M=X\setminus \Sigma\) where \(\Sigma\) is the disjoint union of ten 2-tori. Their example is explicit and enjoys many interesting features; it is indecomposable and has Euler characteristic 12, the smallest known Euler characteristic of indecomposable convex projective 4-manifolds. From the construction, the fundamental group of \(X\) is relatively hyperbolic and \(X\) admits no hyperbolic structure. The construction involves explicit computation of an analytic family of Cartan matrices which gives an analytic family of mirror polytopes with the fixed combinatorial property. Then the authors glue copies of these mirror polytopes as in the work of \textit{A. Kolpakov} and \textit{L. Slavich} [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2016, No. 9, 2677--2716 (2016; Zbl 1404.57051)]. This yields an analytic path from the desired convex projective manifold \(X\) to a cusped hyperbolic structure on \(M\) via projective cone-manifold structures on \(X\).