Absolute profinite rigidity and hyperbolic geometry (Q2215802)

The authors provide examples of profinitely rigid arithmetic Kleinian groups. A residually finite group is \textsl{profinitely rigid} if it is determined by its profinite completion among all residually finite groups. This is also equivalent to saying that it is determined by the set of all its finite quotients. \par These are the first examples where the proof of profinite rigidity cannot be deduced from profinite rigidity within a specific class of groups. \par The examples comprise both uniform and non uniform lattices. The profinitely rigid uniform lattices are the Kleinian group uniformising the Weeks manifold, which is the closed orientable hyperbolic manifold of minimal volume, as well as two other lattices of indices \(3\) and \(12\) that contain it. As for the five non uniform examples, one is the Bianchi group \(PSL(2,{\mathbb Z}[\omega])\), where \(\omega\) is a primitive cubic root of unity, and the other four are the discrete subgroups of \(Isom({\mathbf H}^3)\) that contain it. In particular, these groups are commensurable to the fundamental group of the figure-eight knot complement and include the group uniformising the orientable hyperbolic cusped orbifold of minimal volume. \par From the profinite rigidity of the fundamental group \(\Gamma_W\) of the Weeks manifold the authors deduce that the groups of the infinite family \(\{\Gamma_W\times{\mathbb Z}^r \mid r\ge 0\}\) are also profinitely rigid. \par The proofs rely on a variety of specific properties satisfied by the lattices considered. In particular, a crucial common feature is the fact that these lattices present a sort of \textsl{representation rigidity}, in that they have very few represenations into \(SL(2,{\mathbb C})\), all arising from their arithmetic structure.