Divergence, exotic convergence and self-bumping in quasi-Fuchsian spaces (Q2214727)

By the resolution of the Bers-Sullivan-Thurston density conjecture, every finitely generated Kleinian group is an algebraic limit of quasi-conformal deformations of a geometrically finite group; however, as the author notes, even in the case of Kleinian groups isomorphic to closed surface groups, deformation spaces are fairly complicated, in particular they are not manifolds due to the phenomenon of ``bumping'' (and also not locally connected). By classical theory, the interior of a deformation space is a disjoint union of quasi-conformal deformation spaces parametrized by the Teichmüller space of the boundary at infinity of the corresponding quotient hyperbolic 3-manifold, and the main subject of the present paper is to determine, for a sequence of quasi-conformal deformations given by a sequence in Teichmüller space, whether it converges and, if yes, to describe the limit of the sequence. ``This paper tries to answer such problems for the case of Kleinian surface groups using the technique of model manifolds of geometric limits which we developed in [the author and \textit{T. Soma}, ``Geometry and topology of geometric limits'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1002.4266}].'' ``We study the topology of the boundaries of quasi-Fuchsian spaces. We first show for a given convergent sequence of quasi-Fuchsian groups, how we can know the end invariant of the limit group from the information on the behaviour of conformal structures at infinity of the groups. This result gives rise to a sufficient condition for divergence of quasi-Fuchsian groups, which generalizes \textit{K. Ito}'s result in the once-punctured torus case to higher genera [Am. J. Math. 134, No. 4, 861--889 (2012; Zbl 1250.30040)]. We further show that quasi-Fuchsian groups can approach a b-group not along Bers slices only when the limit has isolated parabolic loci. This makes it possible to give a necessary condition for points on the boundaries of quasi-Fuchsian spaces to be self-bumping points. We use model manifolds invented by \textit{Y. Minsky} [Ann. Math. (2) 171, No. 1, 1--107 (2010; Zbl 1193.30063)] and their geometric limits studied by Oshika-Soma.'' ``The technique which we develop in this paper shows that model manifolds are quite useful for studying the asymptotic behaviour of sequences in deformation spaces.''