Totally geodesic hyperbolic 3-manifolds in hyperbolic link complements of tori in \(S^4\) (Q6140363)

A general motivation of the paper is the classical problem of when a closed, orientable 3-manifold embeds smoothly in \(S^4\). The authors consider hyperbolic link complements \(X\) of 2-tori in \(S^4\); these have Euler-characteristic \(\chi (X) = \chi (S^4) = 2\) and the second smallest volume among hyperbolic 4-manifolds; in particular, in contrast to the situation in dimension 3, there are only finitely many such hyperbolic link complements. \textit{D. Ivanšić} [Adv. Geom. 4, No. 1, 119--139 (2004; Zbl 1039.57012)] gave a first example of such a hyperbolic link complement of five 2-tori in \(S^4\); the present authors proved that this link complement does not contain any closed embedded totally geodesic hyperbolic 3-manifolds [\textit{M. Chu} and \textit{A. W. Reid}, Algebr. Geom. Topol. 21, No. 5, 2627--2647 (2021; Zbl 1478.57025)]. \textit{D. Ivanšić} et al. [ibid. 5, 999--1026 (2005; Zbl 1085.57013)] found four additional examples of hyperbolic link complements of tori in \(S^4\), and the main result of the present paper states that also these link complements do not contain closed embedded totally geodesic hyperbolic 3-manifolds (they contain, however, embedded noncompact (cusped), finite volume totally geodesic hyperbolic 3-manifolds, and also infinitely many immersed closed totally geodesic hyperbolic 3-manifolds). So the question remains open if there exists a hyperbolic link complement of tori in a closed smooth simply connected 4-manifold (in particular, \(S^4\)) that contains a closed embedded totally geodesic hyperbolic 3-manifold.