Hyperbolic cone-manifold structures with prescribed holonomy. I: Punctured tori (Q540485)

A hyperbolic cone-manifold structure on a surface \(S\), with all interior cone angles being integer multiples of \(2\pi\), determines a holonomy representation \(\rho: \pi_1(S) \to \text{PSL}_2(\mathbb R)\) of the fundamental group (since a small loop around a cone point is homotopically trivial, in order for the holonomy to be well-defined, the corresponding isometry of \(\mathbb H^2\) must be the identity and hence the cone angle a multiple of \(2\pi\)). The main problem considered in the present paper is the converse question when a representation of the fundamental group is the holonomy of a hyperbolic cone-structure. The main result is for the case of the punctured torus: a homomorphism \(\rho: \pi_1(S) \to \text{PSL}_2(\mathbb R)\) from the fundamental group of the punctured torus to the isometry group of the hyperbolic plane is the holonomy representation of a hyperbolic cone-manifold structure on \(S\), with no interior cone points and with geodesic boundary except for at most one corner point (where the corner angle can assume all values in the interval \((0,3\pi)\)) if and only if the representation is not virtually abelian (i.e., its image does not contain an abelian subgroup of finite index). In a sequel available electronically this is used to prove results also for higher-genus surfaces.