Deformations of reducible representations of 3-manifold groups into SL2(ℂ) (Q4526962)

Let \(M\) be a \(3\)-manifold with torus boundary which is a rational homology circle and \(R(M)\) be the variety of representations of the fundamental group of \(M\) in \(SL_2(\mathbb C)\). The authors give an interesting method to describe the local structure of the representation and character varieties of \(M\) around an abelian representation and the corresponding character. They first prove a deformation result for reducible non-abelian representations in \(R(M)\) associated to a simple root of the Alexander polynomial. The main tools of the deformation are the resolution of an infinite set of natural obstructions and the calculation of the dimension of the space of cocycles. In a second step, they use this result to deduce that the analytic germ of \(R(M)\) at the abelian representation associated to the reducible non-abelian representation has only two irreducible components. They also show that the analytic germ of the character variety at the character of that abelian representation has also two irreducible components.