Epstein-Penner decompositions and thrice punctured spheres in hyperbolic 3-manifolds (Q5955150)

Euclidean decompositions for complete noncompact oriented hyperbolic manifolds of finite volume were defined by \textit{D. B. A. Epstein} and \textit{R. C. Penner} [J. Differ. Geom. 27, No. 1, 67-80 (1988; Zbl 0611.53036)]. Canonical decompositions for many alternating link complements were determined by \textit{M. Sakuma} and \textit{J. Weeks} in [Jap. J. Math., New Ser. 21, No. 2, 393-439 (1995; Zbl 0858.57021)], where they also conjectured that the arc arising from the crossing of a reduced alternating diagram of a hyperbolic link is isotopic to an edge of the canonical decomposition. Let \(M\) be a hyperbolic 3-manifold with two cusps, containing an incompressible thrice punctured sphere \(S\) such that two of the punctures belong to one cusp and the other puncture belongs to another cusp. The author proves that either the proper simple arc on \(S\) containing punctures that belong to the same cusp is ambient isotopic to an edge in a certain Euclidean decomposition, or \(M\) is the Whitehead link complement. As a corollary, it is shown that if a crossing of a reduced alternating diagram of a hyperbolic knot is replaced by a large number of half twists, the polar axis of the crossing is ambient isotopic to an edge of the canonical decomposition for the resulting knot.