Torsion de Reidemeister pour les variétés hyperboliques (Q4354420)

Reidemeister torsion is a combinatorial invariant of CW-complexes which are equipped with a representation of their fundamental group and of a basis of the homology with coefficients twisted by this representation. The complex considered here is a compact oriented manifold \(M\) of dimension three whose interior is equipped with a hyperbolic structure of finite volume. This structure induces a representation \(\rho_0: \pi_1(M)\to \text{PSL}_2(C)\). The representation that is considered in this book is the adjoint representation, \(\text{Ad }\rho_0 :\pi_1(M)\to \Aut\big(sl_2(C)\big)\), which is unimodular. By a result of Milnor, there is a Reidemeister torsion for \(M\), associated to \(\text{Ad }\rho_0\) and to a choice of a basis of \(H_i(M; \text{Ad }\rho_0)\), for \(i=0,1,2,3\). This torsion is a non-zero complex number, defined up to sign. The author is interested then in studying whether \(H_*(M; \text{Ad }\rho_0)\) is zero or not, and in finding a basis for this homology. In the case where the manifold \(M\) is closed, the homology is trivial, and the associated torsion is well-defined. By the Mostow rigidity theorem, this torsion is a topological invariant of the manifold, and the author studies this invariant. In the case where the boundary of \(M\) is non-empty, the author defines, for every collection of simple closed curves on the boundary, a rational function on the variety of characters \(\chi (M)\) (the definition uses a Reidemeister torsion), which he calls the torsion function. The behaviour of this torsion function is related to the local parametrization of the variety \(\chi(M)\) by trace functions. The author applies the study of this torsion function to the study of Euclidean degeneration of hyperbolic cone manifolds obtained by generalized Dehn surgery on \(M\). This function tends to zero for Euclidean degenerations, and a Euclidean degeneration corresponds in this way to points on \(\chi(M)\) which are zeroes of the torsion function. The book contains several interesting examples involving many aspects of three-dimensional hyperbolic geometry. This text consists in the doctoral dissertation of the author, done at Université Paul Sabatier in Toulouse.