Traces, lengths, axes and commensurability (Q2339515)

The paper is based on the lectures given by the author at the workshop ``Hyperbolic geometry and arithmetic: a crossview'' (Toulouse, 2012). Given a closed orientable hyperbolic \(n\)-manifold \(M = \mathbb{H}^n/\Gamma\) we can associate to it the length spectrum \(\mathcal{L}(M)\) given by the set of all lengths of closed geodesics on \(M\) counted with multiplicities, the length set \(L(M)\) (which is the length spectrum without multiplicities), the rational length set \(\mathbb{Q}L(M)\), and the axes set \(\mathcal{A}(\Gamma)\) given by the set of axes in \(\mathbb{H}^n\) of all the hyperbolic elements in \(\Gamma\). The main theme of the paper is about understanding to which extent each of these sets determines the commensurability class of \(M\). The paper is for the large part a survey of recent work. It ends with a discussion of some interesting open questions, for example: is a Hurwitz surface determined up to isometry by its length spectrum?