Complex earthquakes and deformations of the unit disk (Q2497079)

The authors study deformations of certain geometric objects in hyperbolic 3-space. This study is based on a generalization of the method of complex scaling [\textit{D. B. A. Epstein, A. Marden, V. Markovic}, Complex angle scaling. Kleinian groups and hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Proceedings of the Warwick workshop, Warwick, UK, September 11--14, 2001. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lond. Math. Soc. Lect. Note Ser. 299, 343-362 (2003; Zbl 1051.30022)], and the generalization is related to quakebends [\textit{D. B. A. Epstein, A. Marden}, Convex hulls in hyperbolic space, a theorem of Sullivan, and measured pleated surfaces. Analytical and geometric aspects of hyperbolic space, Symp. Warwick and Durham/Engl. 1984, Lond. Math. Soc. Lect. Note Ser. 111, 113-253 (1987; Zbl 0612.57010)] or complex earthquakes [\textit{C. T. McMullen}, J. Am. Math. Soc. 11, No.2, 283--320 (1998; Zbl 0890.30031)]. More precisely, they study embeddings of the hyperbolic plane \(\mathbb{H}^2\) equipped with a measured geodesic lamination \((\Lambda,\mu)\) into hyperbolic 3-space \(\mathbb{H}^3\). Given a complex number \(t\), a deformation parametrized by \(t\) is obtained by a complex earthquake along the lamination, that is, by earthquaking along the lamination parametrized by the real part of \(t\), and then bending along the image lamination parametrized by the complex part of \(t\). Using these deformations the authors prove two main results. The first result is a new and more general version of Sullivan's theorem [\textit{D. Sullivan}, Semin. Bourbaki, 32e annee, Vol. 1979/80, Exp. 554, Lect. Notes Math. 842, 196-214 (1981; Zbl 0459.57006)]. The second result is related to McMullen's disk theorem [\textit{C. T. McMullen}, loc. cit.)].