Branched Cauchy-Riemann structures on once-punctured torus bundles (Q6160104)

For a homogeneous space \(X\) endowed with a transitive action \(G\) thereon, the pair \((G, X)\) is called a geometric structure when \(G\) acts as the symmetry group of \(X\). Moreover, a \((G, X)\)-manifold is a manifold \(M\) equipped with an atlas of charts in the model space \(X\) whose transition functions are restrictions of the transformations in \(G\). In particular, a manifold \(M\) admits a spherical CR structure when it is endowed with a geometric \((G=\mathrm{PU}(2,1), X=\mathbb S^3)\)-structure. Every CR structure on a manifold \(M\) comes with a so-called developing map \(\widetilde{M}\rightarrow\mathbb S^3\) and a holonomy representation \(\rho:\pi_1(M)\rightarrow \mathrm{PU}(2,1)\). Thus, an interesting question to ask is: is there any CR structure on \(M\) with a given holonomy representation \(\rho\)? Inspired by the work of \textit{E. Falbel} in [J. Differ. Geom. 79, No. 1, 69--110 (2008; Zbl 1148.57025)], this question can be even generalized to ask: is there any \textit{branched} CR structure on \(M\) whose holonomy representation is the given map \(\rho\)? The main objective of this paper is to answer the latter question for a large class of 3-manifolds by providing an effective technique to concretely construct their branched CR structures. The model spaces \(X\) investigated in this paper are once-punctured torus bundles, orientable manifolds which are the interiors of compact 3-manifolds with boundary a torus. The technique introduced in this paper relies on a modification of the Floyd-Hatcher monodromy ideal triangulation of the once-punctured torus bundles to a new cell decomposition which is geometrically realisable in CR setting and whose set of edges contains the branch locus. As the main result of this paper, the author shows that every hyperbolic once-punctured torus bundle \(M_f\) admits an ideal cell decomposition \(\mathcal D_f\) which is geometrically realisable in CR space. It corresponds to a branched CR structure, whose branch locus is contained in the union of all edges of \(\mathcal D_f\). Moreover, it is shown that the ramification order around each edge depends only on its valence in \(\mathcal D_f\) which is explicitly computable.